by Leona Karr
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Books by Leona Karr
Title Page
Dedication
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Copyright
Mark,
I have to leave for a while. Don’t try to find me. Please take care of the children.
Ardie
Mark fought back panic. He could feel the wide-eyed stares of the little boy and girl on the couch. What did “a while” mean?
Desperation coiled in his stomach. He knew nothing about taking care of children.
“Where shall I put the baby for the night?” the sitter Ardie had left with the kids asked. She held a swaddled bundle in her arms.
Baby?
Mark stared at the chaos in the apartment, speechless. Toys and tiny clothes were—everywhere.
The little boy slipped off the couch and crept closer, looking up at Mark seemingly in awe.
Something in Mark’s chest squeezed tight. He stared down into the child’s hopeful gaze and made a decision. He ran a company with hundreds of employees—he could certainly deal with three small children.
After all, it was just for a little while…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leona Karr loves to read and write, and her favorite books are romantic suspense. Every book she writes is an exciting discovery as she finds the right combination of romance and intrigue. She has authored over thirty novels, many of which, like Mystery Dad, are set in her home state, Colorado. When she’s not reading and writing, she thoroughly enjoys spoiling her eight beautiful granddaughters.
Books by Leona Karr
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
120—TREASURE HUNT
144—FALCON’S CRY
184—HIDDEN SERPENT
227—FLASHPOINT
262—CUPID’S DAGGER
309—BODYGUARD
366—THE CHARMER
459—FOLLOW ME HOME
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Mystery Dad
Leona Karr
To Janet Grill, my dear friend, In Heart and Spirit
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Mark Richards—The confirmed bachelor had never thought of himself as father material—until three children entered his life.
Kerri Kincaid—Her P.I. business was safe and dull—then Mark Richards walked through the door.
Jason Richards—Mark’s brother recently died in an accident—or was it?
Ardie Richards—Jason’s widow dropped off the children and vanished.
Cora Dunbar—The temporary baby-sitter tried to help—and got hurt for her efforts.
Buddy Browski—Ardie’s previous husband had died under mysterious circumstances.
Jeff Elders—The financial adviser in Mark’s Los Angeles office was the last person to see Jason alive.
Ken Nabors—The cocky P.I. had helped Kerri with many cases.
Dirk—His name frightened Timmy—was he the stranger lurking around Mark’s apartment?
Timmy, Patti and Pammy—The three children just needed love and stability.
Chapter One
Mark Richards heard the baby’s cry the minute he stepped out of the elevator. He paused for a moment, listening. The sound was intrusive, and frankly, annoying on this fifth floor of a fashionable loft apartment building in lower downtown Denver. Two bachelor pads spanned the whole top floor, his and one belonging to a middle-aged investment broker, Ted Winters. The quiet atmosphere of the newly renovated building was one of the joys of returning home from stressful business trips. He wondered who Ted’s visitor with the baby might be and murmured a silent plea that their visit would be short. At thirty-five, he’d settled into a regimented routine of work and solitary pleasures, and he resented any intrusion into his well-ordered life.
Shifting his traveling case, he dug in his pockets for his keys, took a few steps down the hall and then stopped short. The baby’s cries were getting louder. He couldn’t believe his ears. The intrusive sound was coming from his own loft apartment.
“What in blazes—?” he swore. As he racked his brain, he couldn’t think of a single person who should be in his apartment with a squalling kid. Most of his friends were single or divorced, and his only brother, who had died a couple of months earlier, had been married for only a short time, no kids. Besides, no one had any business being in his apartment while he was gone.
Mark strode to the carved mahogany door and angrily shoved his key into the lock. He didn’t think about calling security or anyone else. The violation of his privacy was enough to send hot blood racing through his six-foot frame and stiffen every muscle. Flinging the door open, he strode across the foyer and into the wide-open space that was his living room.
A middle-aged, heavyset woman wearing tight jeans and large, plastic-framed glasses stood in the middle of the room. She was jiggling a five or six-month-old baby with one arm while readying a baby bottle with her free hand. “Thank heavens, you’re home,” she told Mark with an expression of utter relief.
He’d never seen her before.
Sitting down in his favorite lounge chair, she stuck a bottle in the baby’s mouth. “There, there,” she soothed and a blessed silence filled the room as the baby nursed the bottle.
Before Mark could release an explosive breath, a flicker of movement on his leather couch jerked his eyes in that direction. He saw two small children with toys and books piled between them, who looked as if a minute before they’d been laughing and playing. But now their wide eyes stared at him as if he were some creature complete with horns and dragon’s tail. The little girl must have been about two years old, and the boy, five or six. They both had unruly curly blond hair, rounded blue eyes, and were dressed in wrinkled play clothes and dirty sneakers.
Mark felt as if his brain must have jumped a rail. For a weird moment, he thought he must be in the wrong loft apartment. But no, everything was familiar, cream-and-black leather furniture, ceiling-to-floor windows with a spectacular view of Denver’s night skyline, and his favorite wall hangings and bookshelves. Everything was normal except for the woman and kids parked in his front room.
“Your office said your flight was due back at four o’clock,” the woman said in an accusing tone. “It’s nearly seven now. I didn’t know what to do.”
Disbelief made his voice strident. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my apartment?”
The woman brushed back a frizzy shock of bleached hair and frowned at him. Her frank eyes glinted with disapproval. “My name is Cora Dunbar. I was hired to stay with these children until you got back. Mrs. Richards said that you’d pay me for a whole day’s wages, but since it’s evening, you’ll owe me for the extra hours, too.”
“Mrs. Richards?”
“The children’s mom. She said you were their uncle.”
“I’m not anybody’s uncle. My only brother didn’t have any children.”
She shrugged. “Ready-made families are nothing out of the ordinary. Nowadays, there’s nothing simple like kids belonging to one set of parents. She said she hadn’t been married to your brother very long but he really loved the children. He t
old her if she ever needed anything to come to you.”
His brother had never mentioned that he was acquiring a ready-made family with his recent marriage. Out of the blue a few months back, Jason had called Mark to say he’d gotten married and was honeymooning in Reno. The marriage had been an utter surprise. Stunned and worried that his impulsive brother was headed for another dismal failure like his first two marriages, Mark tried to ask some questions about the new bride, but all Jason would say was, “She’s wonderful! Wait ‘til you meet her. Ardie’s the best.” The meeting had never taken place.
When his brother was killed a few months later in a freak car accident on a California freeway, Mark brought the body back to Colorado for burial, and he’d met his brother’s wife then. She hadn’t brought any children with her. His brother’s widow was a small, light-haired woman who had kept her distance and made little effort to ingratiate herself with Mark. He’d never expected to see her again.
“There has to be a mistake,” Mark repeated more fervently.
“You’re Mr. Mark Richards, aren’t you?” At his nod, Cora said shortly, “Then there’s no mistake.”
“I’m afraid there is,” he said, with a determined jut of his chin as he ran a hand through the stylish cut of his light brown hair. “A big one. How did you get in here?”
“Mrs. Richards had a key.”
Mark silently steamed. He’d given Jason a key so he could come and go when he was in Denver. No doubt, she’d held on to his brother’s key after his death. Drawing in a deep breath, Mark endeavored to keep his voice even. “All right, explain. What are you doing in my apartment?”
“Tending the children ‘til you got home. I came at nine o’clock this morning and Mrs. Richards told me to wait here ‘til you got back and took them off my hands.” Cora shifted the baby, reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to him. “She said to give you this.”
The stationery was from his desk. Impatiently Mark ripped the envelope open. The single sheet of paper had two lines of hasty writing on it. “Have to leave for a while. Don’t try to find me. Ardie.”
Mark read it through three times and still came up short of making any sense out of it. What in blazes? What did she mean by “leave for a while”? An hour? A night? A day or two? How dare the woman dump these strange kids on him for who knew how long? He couldn’t believe the nerve of it. Mark’s fist closed over the note.
He could feel the wide-eyed stare of the little boy and girl on the couch. Whatever they had been playing with lay between them, forgotten. The little girl had stuck her thumb in her mouth and pulled her chubby legs up under her Indian style. The boy’s eyes were too large for his freckled nose and thin face, and the shape of his head was lost in his wild frenzy of hair.
“Well now, the little one’s asleep,” Cora said softly, as she put the baby over her shoulder and patted its bottom. “Where do you want me to put her down?”
“What?” Mark came out of his fog with a jolt.
“The baby. Where are you going to bed her down? And the other little ones? They’re dead on their feet I made them sandwiches for supper. Hope you didn’t mind. Couldn’t find much in your fridge. You’ll have to order in some groceries. And some more milk. I’ll tuck them in before I leave.”
“Leave? You can’t leave.” Mark’s jaw clenched in panic.
“Have to. Got my own family to look after. Just came on this job cause I was needing some extra money. Usually, I clean houses for the agency. When this baby-sitting job came up, they asked me if I’d like to take it Doesn’t pay as much as my regular assignments but they didn’t have me scheduled to go anywhere. Like I said, I wasn’t supposed to work past five o’clock. You owe me overtime.”
Mark fought back instant panic. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let this woman walk out and leave him with a baby and two little kids. He’d brought off million-dollar deals for his finance company when there didn’t seem to be a chance of snaring the investors, and the present situation was certainly one that demanded his best persuasive powers.
He gave Cora Dunbar his best people-management smile. “Well now, I’m sure we can work something out, Cora,” he said smoothly. “How about we add an extra hundred dollars to your regular fee for helping me out with the children tonight? Just tonight. If their mother hasn’t come back by morning then we’ll work something else out.”
Mark didn’t have a clue what that would be. He only knew he wasn’t going to play patsy for some brazen woman who thought she could dump her kids on him. He pulled out his wallet and handed the baby-sitter a handful of bills. “Would this put us even?”
Cora fingered the bills and nodded, her expression showing an inner battle going in her head. “I don’t know if I should. My sister and her husband depend upon me and all.”
“Surely, they wouldn’t mind you bringing home some extra money?” Mark coaxed, desperation coiling in his stomach. He knew absolutely nothing about taking care of kids and babies, and didn’t want to. He’d watched other men go the marriage-and-family route without the least pang of envy. A confirmed bachelor through and through, he enjoyed feminine companionship when he wanted it, and often entertained a small social circle of friends, but he liked his life the way it was, well-ordered and successful.
His mind raced ahead. “We could send a taxi to pick up an overnight bag for you. You and the children could take the bedroom and the pullout couch on the balcony. I’ll bed down in the den.” Not the best of sleeping arrangements, but the best he could offer. His deluxe bachelor pad was not made for family living. “Just tell me what you need, and I’ll order it in,” he promised.
Cora looked at the money one more time and then stuffed the bills in her jeans pocket. She nodded at Mark. “Seeing the way things are, I reckon I could stay. But if their mom comes back in the night, you ain’t getting any money back.”
“Agreed,” said Mark, hiding a sigh of relief. Suddenly he realized that the little boy had slipped off the couch and was standing close to him. Mark was startled to see a broad grin on his little face. A shock of unruly blond hair fell over one eye as he held out something in his hand. Mark nearly choked when he saw what it was—his prized Rockies autographed baseball that he kept in a glass case in the den.
“Wanna play catch?” the boy asked shyly.
For a moment, Mark couldn’t speak, then he said firmly, “That isn’t the kind of baseball you play with.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a special ball. You can’t play with it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so,” Mark answered shortly and took the ball away from him.
Cora pushed herself to her feet. Shifting the sleeping baby, she motioned to the other two children. “Come on, Timmy. Patti. Bedtime. Let’s see who beds down where. I’ll make that call to my sister after I settle them down,” she told Mark.
He nodded and led the way to his bedroom. The spacious loft apartment had over 4,500 thousand square feet of living space, but it only had one enclosed bedroom with an adjoining bathroom. A kitchen and dining area was open to the large room, and a modest den with another small bathroom was partitioned off by panels of bookshelves. The walls were bare red brick with a series of ten-foot windows overlooking lower downtown Denver and the Rocky Mountain front range to the west. A wrought-iron circular staircase let to a small balcony that served as a sitting room or extra sleeping area. Jason had used the Hide-A-Bed couch when he was in town.
When Mark opened the door to his bedroom, he was hit with another surprise. Toys and clothes were strewn all over the floor and his king-size water bed was littered with half-opened suitcases and a diaper bag. Glasses and empty pop cans had already marked circles on his bedside tables. Several chiffonier drawers were slightly ajar and the door to his walk-in closet was fully open.
“Their mother told me to put the kids in here for their nap, so I did,” Cora said defensively as a red flare mounted in Mark’s n
eck. “I’ll tidy it up a bit in the morning,” she assured him.
Mark couldn’t do anything but nod. If he’d uttered one word, his fury would have heated the room to five hundred degrees. One glance through the half-opened bathroom door was enough to assure him it had been taken over as completely as his bedroom.
“Timmy and Patti can sleep here,” Cora said. “And I’ll keep the baby with me on the balcony bed.” She gave him a tentative smile. “Mighty nice place you’ve got here, Mr. Richards. Awfully big for just one man, though.”
Mark choked back a scathing retort. No use taking his fury out on the baby-sitter. It was Ardie Richards’s neck he wanted to throttle with his strong fingers.
THE SEPTEMBER MORNING sunlight coming through the second-floor office window warmed Kerri Kincaid’s face as she looked down at the busy Sixteenth Street mall. Shuttle buses deposited riders at the corners, pedestrians flowed through the crosswalks, and creative street entertainers collected gawking crowds. A beautiful Colorado autumn was in the making, and the brisk fall air seemed to put a bounce in everybody’s step.
Kerri never tired of the scene, but she sighed, knowing she was stalling. Her intake basket was full of investigations in progress that were waiting for her attention. The growing success of her company, Finders, Inc., left her slightly discontented.
I must have autumn spring fever, she thought She loved her work, but for some reason, her usual excitement and enthusiasm for the job had hit a low ebb. Searches for deadbeat dads, bill-collector dodgers, runaways, and adopted children looking for natural parents made up most of her clientele. Most cases simply required methodical checking of paper trails, and usually by the time she completed her checklist of government records, utility companies, employment records, work permits, former addresses and computerized records, she had zeroed in on the party in question.
