The Baby Track

by Barbara Boswell

  Her head reflexively rolled back and came to rest momentarily on the satisfying, hard width of his chest. She felt surrounded by him, enveloped by his strong masculine warmth. She inhaled deeply, and his scent filled her nostrils, a drugging aroma of pure male virility.

  A rush of sensual hunger, the likes of which she had never before experienced, jolted through her with such force that she gasped. Taut against her buttocks, she felt the unmistakable force of aroused maleness. An answering blaze kindled within her and she felt hot, so hot she feared that the flame might consume her.

  Courtney let out a panicky sound, and her own hands covered Connor’s, which were locked together over her stomach. She tried to pry his fingers loose.

  “Let me go,” she said in a husky voice that contained none of the authority she had intended and all of the shakiness she’d hoped to conceal.

  But Connor obliged at once. He abruptly dropped his hands, releasing her, then sank into a nearby chair. She was definitely too hot to handle. In just those few minutes, his breathing had quickened, his heart rate had skyrocketed and the other physical effect she’d had on him was starkly visible.

  Feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable, he snatched a copy of Insight magazine and placed it over his lap. “Sit down, Courtney,” he ordered. “Kaufman, try to keep your Probe instincts under control and help us work out some kind of plan.”

  Courtney’s first inclination was to run from the office. But then, that was what had caused Connor to grab her in the first place. Anyway, her knees felt peculiarly wobbly; she really needed to sit down. She dropped onto the hard, metal chair near the door.

  “Damn, how did I get dragged into your personal crusade?” Kieran grumbled. “All I wanted was a sensational story. What’s behind this vendetta against Nollier, anyway, McKay?”

  “He wants to see justice served and to right a terrible wrong,” Courtney spoke up. “That hardly falls within the realm of a personal vendetta, Mr. Kaufman.” Why on earth was she leaping to Connor McKay’s defense? she wondered, both annoyed and surprised that she had. The man was certainly capable of holding his own.

  “Believe me, doll, I’ve been around long enough to know that nothing is as simple as it seems,” drawled Kaufman. “Serving justice and righting wrongs take second place to one’s own agenda. Admit it, you have your own personal reasons for getting interested in the subject of adoption in the first place. You might as well ’fess up, because I’ll find out anyway. Inquiring minds like mine want to know.” Courtney sighed impatiently. “It’s no big secret why I happened to become interested in the subject of adoption. My older brother Mark and his wife Marianne have been trying to adopt a baby for the past five years and have been frustrated at every turn.”

  “So you hope to find a way to help them adopt a kid,” Kaufman said with an I-told-you-so expression.

  Courtney sighed. “Mark and Marianne have been on a number of adoption agencies’ waiting lists, and they even applied to a surrogacy program three years ago. They paid a substantial fee and a young woman volunteer was chosen,” she said, then paused, frowning. The stoiy still had the power to upset her. “The woman was inseminated and became pregnant.”

  Connor leaned forward. “What happened?”

  “Mark and Marianne were ecstatic about the pregnancy. And then the woman reneged.” Courtney’s face clouded. “Just a few weeks before the baby was due, she took off. She left a note saying that she couldn’t bear to give up her baby and she’s never been heard from again.”

  “Bummer,” said Kieran. “Did your brother get his money back?”

  “The director of the surrogacy program insisted that only half could be returned to them,” said Courtney. “It was a big financial loss, but losing the money was nothing compared to losing the baby and knowing that Mark has a child out there he’ll never know.”

  “That’s a damn shame, Courtney,” murmured Connor. “Yeah,” Kieran agreed. “If they’d gotten the full amount back, they could’ve used it to buy a kid from Wilson Nol-lier’s outfit.”

  Connor and Courtney exchanged exasperated glances. “Kaufinan, you’ve missed the point entirely,” growled Connor. “And that happens to be, childless couples should not be exploited in their desire to have a family. Children are not commodities to be bought and sold.”

  “Stop!” howled Kieran. “Save it for the righteous tear-jerker of a program that’ll undoubtedly air on NPB, courtesy of Miss Carey here. And now, let’s hear your reasons for getting involved, McKay. But kindly skip the truth-justice-and-American-way lecture, because coming from you, I don’t buy it.”

  Connor stood up and began to pace the small office, reminding Courtney of a restless tiger in a too-small cage. “You’re right, I do have a personal interest in the topic of Kids for Cash. The couple who raised me—my adoptive parents, if you will, although they never got around to formally filing adoption papers—were paid to take me. My biological father was a married man who’d had a fling that resulted in yours truly. He didn’t want a scandal and gave the McKays a tidy sum to take me and keep things hushed up. Things were different thirty-four years ago. There was a surplus of adoptable infants and the McKays were in need of the cash.”

  “How did you find out about all of this?” Courtney asked quietly. It was both an affecting and depressing revelation for anyone to learn about themselves, let alone cocky, confident Connor McKay. How strange, she thought; her brother and his wife would pay anything to obtain a child, but Connor McKay’s adoptive parents had been paid to take him. Things certainly were different thirty-four years ago in the adoption market.

  “My dad—the one who raised me, not the one who paid to get rid of me—told me when I turned thirteen,” said Connor. “He figured I was old enough to know and had the right to learn the truth. My mother doesn’t know I know the truth,” he added. “I promised Dad I would go on pretending to believe the McKays are my natural parents. For some reason, Mom prefers the fiction to the truth.”

  “I don’t know why he had to tell you the truth in the first place!” Courtney exclaimed indignantly. “It must have been a terrible shock, and he couldn’t have picked a more sensitive age! The man sounds positively heartless. Was your mother cruel, too?”

  Connor shook his head, laughing. “Don’t get so rattled, Gypsy. My folks weren’t cruel to me. Oh, there were some problems, sure. My dad was a compulsive gambler and regularly lost his paychecks at the track, but we never held that against him. He was a terrific father. He treated me no differently than he did his own two daughters, natural-born McKays who are two and three years younger than I am. Dad died of a heart attack six months ago,” he added.

  Dead or alive, Mr. McKay, Sr., didn’t sound so terrific to Courtney. “What about your mother?” she asked curiously. “What was she like?”

  “I was always closer to Dad than to my mother,” Connor replied. “She wasn’t as much fun, she always seemed preoccupied. Their marriage was on the rocks for as long as I can remember. Mom’s a nurse and has always worked shifts at the local hospital, plus overtime. Anything to get out of the house, I think. There were times when we didn’t see a whole lot of her.”

  “No wonder she wasn’t as much fun. She was unhappily married with three children and an irresponsible husband who gambled away his salary,” Courtney felt compelled to point out. “It’s not surprising that the poor woman worked all the time. She had to! She was supporting the entire family.”

  Connor shrugged and made no response. He’d already said enough, perhaps too much. He seldom talked about his family; he didn’t care to reveal himself. He turned instead to Kaufman. “Those are our respective motives for involving ourselves in the story, Kieran. I hope your inquiring mind is satisfied. Now it’s time to formulate a plan.”

  “I have an idea,” Courtney said eagerly. “I’ll go to Wilson Nollier and tell him that I’m expecting a baby and want to give it up for adoption. Then we’ll learn firsthand how he operates. I’ll wear a wire to get everyt
hing he says on tape.” “Give me a break!” Kaufman snorted scornfully. “Nollier is smart. He’s not going to fall for a stupid, simplistic act like that. If you want to get him, you’re going to have to play hardball, to put yourself on the line and be as deceptive and sophisticated as he is.”

  “If you’re going to suggest that I actually get pregnant to look more convincing, you can just forget it,” Courtney said succinctly.

  Connor turned to face her. “I was thinking along the lines of you and I posing as a married couple, going to Nollier and telling him we want to adopt a baby. To nail Nollier for extortion, we have to be in the position where he can extort money from us—and that will be as potential adoptive parents.”

  “No,” Courtney said quickly. She didn’t bother to question why playing the role of an unwed mother was less disconcerting, less threatening, than pretending to be married to Connor McKay.

  “Faking a pregnancy is a lot more difficult than faking a marriage, Courtney,” Connor cut in. “You’ll need some sort of medical proof, and using bogus paperwork is a risk. Nollier has been successful in this adoption racket because he’s careful. We can’t risk losing credibility with faux documents. Adoptive parents don’t need anything but cash. We’ll pretend to be married and ask him to get us a child. We’ll keep our own secret records for payments made to him and tape any incriminating conversations.”

  Courtney considered it. As much as she hated to agree, his plan was better than hers, both easier and safer to enact. But the idea of pretending to be Connor’s wife... She shifted restlessly and her eyes darted compulsively to him.

  Their gazes met.

  Courtney’s breath caught in her throat. A tightness in her chest radiated lower, to her abdomen, and pierced her sharply, deeply. She tried to reason away the unreasonable, dangerous sexual excitement. There was no place in her life for a rogue like Connor McKay. The Connor McKays of the world caused women to read books on how to overcome heartbreak and to join support groups to cope with their misery.

  “I’m only doing this for my brother and his wife and all the couples like them,” she announced, as much for her own benefit as his. “If a creep like Nollier is put out of business, then maybe the birth mothers will give up their babies to legitimate sources and people without a fortune to spend will be able to adopt.”

  Connor nodded, trying and failing to drag his eyes away from her. Another unwelcome flood of sensual hunger galvanized him, followed by a wave of confusion. He’d learned long ago not to pay too much attention to feelings and needs. It was easier and more convenient to keep them safely buried. But for the first time in years, he felt a break in his defensive wall. And that alarmed him.

  “The two of you will certainly have fun playing married in that bucolic paradise, Shadyside Falls,” Kaufman said, reasserting his presence with a leer.

  “What are you talking about?” demanded Courtney.

  “We’re not planning on going anywhere,” added Connor.

  “You don’t know about Shadyside Falls?” Kaufman heaved a sigh. “Ah well, few can match me and my network of spies, I guess. The town of Shadyside Falls is the top-secret part of Nollier’s operation.”

  He regarded Connor and Courtney with undisguised superiority. “Let me explain Wilson Nollier’s usual procedure to you. Within a few weeks or months after the initial intake visit to his office in the city, Nollier insists that the prospective parents go to a small town named Shadyside Falls near the West Virginia-Maryland border.”

  “Go away?” echoed Courtney. “The two of us? Together?”

  Kaufman nodded. “It’s all part of the racket. Supposedly Nollier owns a big piece of this town. You’ll stay in a place designated by him, and that’s also where you’ll get the baby. Meanwhile, you’re under observation by his network of spies, so you’ll have to be convincing. One of the reasons Nollier has yet to be nailed is because of this observation period. If there is a suspicion that the parents aren’t exactly what they seem, they pay no money and get no baby. Or no evidence or story, either, of course. There can be no slipups or you’re out, kids.”

  “None of the couples I talked to mentioned this Shadyside Falls place,” murmured Connor.

  Privately he was shaken more than he ever cared to admit. It was one thing to pretend to be married to Courtney Carey in a lawyer’s office. But to live with her while masquerading as husband and wife? The entire situation suddenly loomed as a particularly dangerous entanglement.

  “The couples sign some kind of paper swearing to keep the Shadyside Falls experience confidential,” said Kaufman.

  “I’m not a lawyer, but even I know that such a paper isn’t legal and binding,” said Courtney. Her mind was reeling. Live with Connor McKay as his wife? And convince any interested observers that they were happily married? Suppose their designated place to stay had one bedroom and one bed?

  “Sure, but it’s proof of how scared of Nollier these couples are,” said Kaufman. “But they all recognize that the whole business is unethical and illegal and want to generate some heat, so they’ll cooperate up to a certain point. If you really want to stop Nollier, you’re going to have to go to Shadyside Falls to do it.”

  “Of course we want to stop Nollier,” said Courtney.

  Connor gazed into her beautiful dark eyes and felt a pang of guilt. Her reasons for wanting to stop Nollier were impeccable. He knew his were not. For beneath his contempt for Nollier’s racket, he carried a personal grudge against the man as well. He was certain that Wilson Nollier had arranged his sale to the McKays.

  Connor remembered the stunning pain he’d felt when he had first learned that he wasn’t who he thought he was, that the McKays weren’t his parents, that they had been paid to take him. And though he didn’t reveal the identity of his birth mother, Dennis McKay had been eager to tell the thirteen-year-old about the wealthy, socially prominent executive who had fathered him and then given him away.

  From that day on, Connor had read everything he could find about that man, his father, Richard Tremaine. He knew where Tremaine lived and worked, knew that he had three half-brothers, Cole, two years older than himself, and Nathaniel and Tyler, both younger. He knew that Tremaine’s wife Marnie—the one he’d cheated on—had been killed in a car accident at the age of twenty-nine. Tremaine had never remarried, but devoted himself to his company and to raising his three sons, all under eight at the time of their mother’s death. Supposedly Tremaine had been shattered by his beautiful young wife’s death and never considered remarriage because he loved her still.

  Connor scoffed at that fairy tale; his very existence disproved it. Richard Tremaine had cheated on the beautiful, tragic Marnie and his adulterous affair had produced an unwanted son.

  It stood to reason that, thirty-four years ago, the senior Tremaine would have called upon Wilson Nollier, his longtime lawyer-friend, to arrange the sale of his bastard son. Nollier and Tremaine had grown up together; they still golfed together and traveled in the same social circles. His old friend’s fall would be a blow to Richard Tremaine, compliments of that same unacknowledged bastard.

  “We’re going to nail Nollier,” Connor said fiercely, his green eyes glittering. “We’ll do whatever it takes, won’t we, Courtney?”

  Courtney studied him. She was aware of a tension emanating from Connor, and it was different from the sexual tension that had stretched between them earlier. He looked dangerous, hard and cruel.

  But crimes like baby-selling were cruel, and an adversary had to be tough to stand a chance of winning against a man like Wilson Nollier. If this expedition successfully ended Nollier’s racket, it would be worth the sacrifice of enduring a few days of pretending to be Connor McKay’s wife. After all, the key word was pretend. And if there was only one bed, Connor could sleep in the bathtub or on the floor!

  “Yes, we’ll do it,” she affirmed, nodding her head.

  “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” Kaufman said laconically.

  Cou
rtney grimaced. She was uneasy enough; Kaufman’s negative little digs didn’t help. Once again, her eyes strayed to Connor, and once again, she caught him staring at her. Her pulse leaped.

  “I have to leave,” she announced suddenly. “I have an appointment in twenty minutes.” A bit of a white lie; her appointment wasn’t for another two hours. But every self-protective instinct she possessed clamored for her to get away. Now.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” Connor called as she walked out the door. “Around eight. We have a lot of details to iron out.”

  “I have a date tonight. Give me a call at my office tomorrow,” Courtney ordered and marched out.

  “Sassy little wife you’ve got there, McKay,” Kieran observed. “Needs to be shown who’s boss.”

  Connor stared at the door, his eyes agleam. “I wonder if tonight would be too soon to start?”

  No expense had been spared in feting the patrician Virginia horse breeder, Harmon Blake “Hop” Hopwood, on his sixtieth birthday. Courtney glanced around the enormous ballroom of the exclusive Twin Oaks Country Club, staring at the grove of real trees that had been embedded in concrete planters for the occasion and that gave the baroque ballroom the feel of an actual forest. Hop Hopwood was an avid outdoorsman, and the party decor reflected his tastes. The trees even had live wild birds in them, captured and housed in cages, a concession to the indoor aspect of the faux woodland setting.

  A twenty-piece band provided music from the “big band” era, there was a sumptuous buffet and open bars and heavy socializing among the guests of all ages.

  Courtney sat at a round table for eight, all the seats vacated but hers and Emery Harcourt’s. Poor Emery hadn’t wanted to come tonight, but his family had insisted, and he had obeyed, asking her to accompany him. His deepening depression concerned her. The appearance of his former fiancee with her new love had drained him of what little spirit he had. Courtney stayed by his side and tried to be consoling.