The Baby Scheme

“Like the fact that no one has jumped at the chance to join his practice?” Alli asked, stretching her long legs beneath the desk. When her knee bumped his, she shifted lazily away. “Or the fact that he’s the one who initiated the adoption project?”

“Both.”

“That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to find out whether he’s related to our former lieutenant governor.”

“He’s his son.” Kevin had done some preliminary sniffing into the man’s background. Although the lieutenant governor was retired, he still wielded considerable political influence. “But I haven’t heard of Dr. Graybar’s having any ambitions to run for office.”

“Neither have I,” Alli replied.

It was nearly eight o’clock. “Time to knock off,” Kevin said. She uncoiled from her seat. “If you’ll give me a tour of the house, I’ll figure out where I’m going to sleep.”

He thought he’d made that clear. “You’re sleeping in here.”

“On that?” She indicated the couch. “Sorry, but my legs don’t detach at night.”

It was small, Kevin conceded. Because he towered over his mother and sisters, he tended to think of women as short.

“There’s no spare bedroom,” he explained. “If I were a gentleman, I’d give up my bed for you—but guess what?—I’m not.”

She pretended to sigh. “You wouldn’t happen to have a mink-lined bathtub I could borrow?”

An image sprang to mind of Allie’s deliciously nude body reclining on fur. Kevin stifled it. “No such luck.”

“How about a hammock in the garage?”

It was a tempting notion to get her out from underfoot, but it wouldn’t work. “No hammock and no space once you put your car inside.”

“I’ll figure out something. Why don’t you show me around.”

Since he could hardly refuse, Kevin escorted her through the one-story structure. She gave an appreciative nod to the open entertainment area that stretched from the living room to the kitchen, where she exclaimed over the large cooking and breakfast areas.

As for the master suite, she took in the art deco bed and dresser skeptically. “They’re pretty but totally wrong.”

“What makes you say that?” The estate-sale price had been right, the furniture had required a minimum of refinishing, and his mother and sisters had given their stamp of approval.

“Because you’re a guy.” Alli swung around so suddenly that Kevin found himself nearly nose to nose with her, give or take a few inches. “You need rough stuff that you can collapse onto when you’re drunk.”

“I don’t drink to excess.” After observing how obnoxious some of his friends became, he never quaffed more than one or two beers per evening. “I hate to think what kind of man you usually associate with.”

She peered at him mischievously. “I have wide experience. How about you?”

“I’ve been around.”

“Then how come you need to barter a date for tomorrow night?”

He preferred not to admit he wanted protection from his matchmaking family. “I’m not seeing anyone currently.”

“At the PD, someone told me you were engaged,” she said.

“I had a serious relationship, but it didn’t work out.” He turned away. “Could we change the subject?”

“Did she pick the furniture?”

“The house came after her time,” he told Alli.

He hadn’t reached the point of buying furniture with Lisette Collins, the woman he’d nearly married. Oddly, when he tried to summon an image of her face, all he got was a vague impression of petite femininity marred by petulance.

Kevin had believed they suited each other fine until they’d started discussing their future. That was when she’d produced a list of requirements, including a big house and several kids right away, with her staying home full-time.

When he’d pointed out that he couldn’t afford all that on a policeman’s salary and that she’d need to keep working for at least a few more years, her mouth had formed a hard, stubborn line. Over the next weeks, he’d seen another side of Lisette, alternately pouting and pressuring him.

It had become clear that what she loved was the idea of a man who fit into her preconceived mold. In fairness, Kevin had to admit that he’d been drawn to Lisette because she seemed like the right type rather than because they loved each other.

He considered it unrealistic to expect a wildly passionate marriage, but whatever the two of them had felt didn’t even come close. Once they started facing reality, matters had deteriorated fast, until they parted by mutual consent.

After inspecting the master bathroom, Alli gave a thumbsup to the whirlpool spa. “Too bad I can’t sleep there,” she said. “It’s big enough, but I’d come out looking like a prune.”

“You could spread my sleeping bag in the living room,” Kevin offered.

“Okay. In fact, an idea just hit me.”

“What?” he demanded.

“If I tell you, it’ll spoil the fun.” Her athletic stride carried her out of the bedroom. “Why don’t you go find your laptop for me,” she called back.

“It’s in the garage.” The small detached building lay behind the house.

“My point exactly.” She folded her arms. “I’d like a little time alone to get things organized. Go on, Kev. I’ll be fine.”

He hated bossy women. But she wasn’t exactly pushing him around. She was just…maddeningly stubborn.

“You are not taking over my bedroom,” he warned as he passed her.

“Definitely not.” She widened her eyes in mock innocence. “I promise I won’t make a pass, big boy.”

He ignored the gibe. “The extra blankets and pillows are in the hall closet. You can store your clothes in there.”

“Great.”

Kevin exited through the kitchen and across the back patio. Since the house dated from the 1930s, the two-car garage faced a rear alley, following the style of old carriage houses.

Inside, he set to work moving boxes so he could reach his spare laptop. Once he found it, he realized he needed to dig out the sleeping bag as well. That required shifting yet another set of containers, and then using his Shop-Vac to suction out the accumulation of spiderwebs and grime that he uncovered.

By the time he finished restoring order, he’d been absent nearly twenty minutes. How much trouble could a woman create in that time? Kevin wondered as he hauled his gear indoors.

Emerging into the entertainment area, he broke stride. What had happened to his beautifully arranged home?

In the center of the living room his swivel chairs served as tent poles for a quilt and an assemblage of blankets and sheets that formed a complete, if ragged-looking, enclosure. The tall, multishelved entertainment center against the wall had almost disappeared beneath an assortment of female garments arranged like a shop-window display. Make that a lingerie shop-window display. Alli hadn’t only hung her blouses and skirts in full view, she’d dangled frilly under-things, as well.

“Oh, good, you brought the sleeping bag!” His guest, who’d been lurking to one side observing his reaction, darted forward to lift the bedroll from his arms. “I needed this to finish it off.” She hauled it into the impromptu yurt through a flap.

Kevin couldn’t believe she’d transformed his well-ordered home into chaos. He hated to think how his mother and sisters would react. “Your clothes,” he said.

“Excuse me?” Through the flap, her face popped into view, strands of hair drifting across her nose.

“Put the clothes in the hall closet,” Kevin instructed.

Emerging, Alli plucked some lint from her sweater and dropped it on the carpet. “You have to admit, this place needed livening up.”

He would admit no such thing. “I liked it the way it was.”

“It’s as if nobody really lives here,” she protested. “It isn’t civilized to be that tidy.”

Kevin considered himself distinctly civilized. Well, maybe not at this moment, because he had a strong desire to rip down the mess in his living room and evict his guest, underwear and all. “You can’t leave this—”

The doorbell rang. “I’ll answer it!” Alli sang out.

“Stop right there!”

Alarm flashed across her face. “You think the bodyguards found us?”

“If they had, I doubt they’d be polite enough to ring the bell.” It was far more likely that his mother, Betsy or Barbara had dropped by.

Kevin didn’t require another look to know how his living room must appear, but he couldn’t help it. The place exerted a kind of horrifying fascination, like the scene of a crime. Especially the crimson panties and bra trimmed with black lace that occupied the center of Alli’s fashion monstrosity.

The doorbell rang again. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t home, since he’d made the mistake of leaving his car in front.

“I’ll handle it,” he said.

He took the precaution of glancing through the window, but the figure on the porch remained out of view. His mother and sisters had perfected the art of avoiding surveillance.

There was no point in delaying. That could only make it appear that Alli had been detaining him—perhaps by doing a striptease to remove all that lingerie.

Gritting his teeth, Kevin opened the door.

Chapter Four

“Is, um, Alli here?” she heard a young man ask, and knew immediately who it was, mainly because she’d invited him.

“Larry! That was quick.” Alli squeezed into the doorway next to Kevin, who showed no inclination to move.

The photographer glanced between the two of them. With his round, freckled face and Harry Potter glasses, he made an amusing contrast to the hard-bodied detective.

“I thought you were staying with a girlfriend.”

“I said a friend,” she corrected, and introduced the two men. They shook hands, which seemed to calm Larry somewhat. He apparently found Kevin intimidating, perhaps because he was scowling.

Okay, she should have asked his permission before inviting someone to his house, Alli mused as she escorted her visitor inside, but he’d been in the garage when Larry called.

“Let’s see what you found.” She slipped a file folder from the photographer’s grasp. He’d offered on the phone to e-mail the document until she’d reminded him that Payne might have managed to access her account.

Inside lay several photocopied pages of a news story carrying Madge Leeky’s byline. It was dated three years earlier.

“It’s about the adoption counselor those two doctors hired,” Larry explained. “It’s all I could find.”

Kevin’s frown eased. “You’re helping with her research?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said.

“Did she explain what the story’s about?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” Larry said. “I don’t care as long as she makes a splash. We all want her back at the paper, except for a few idiots. Like maybe two with the same last name.”

Kevin nodded. “Care for a beer?”

The offer apparently indicated Larry had passed muster. “Say yes,” Alli prompted.

“Okay.”

“Alli?” Kevin asked.

“Sure.” She liked being treated as one of the guys. Well, sometimes.

A pucker formed between the photographer’s eyes as he stared past her at the entertainment center. “What hit your clothes, a hurricane?”

Alli gave a little cough, wishing he could have avoided the touchy subject. She hadn’t missed Kevin’s dismayed reaction earlier to her attempt at livening up his decor.

Her true motive had been more self-defense than aesthetics. Despite the spotlessness of the house, the man’s essence infused the place with he-man hormones. As she’d started to hang her things in the hall closet next to a leather jacket, she’d realized that his pheromones were likely to pervade her clothes forever.

That was all she needed: to carry Kevin’s scent around with her, arousing images of the two of them dancing cheek to cheek and thigh to thigh. Mr. Law-and-Way-Too-Much-Order was not even remotely the kind of guy she wanted imprinted on her psyche.

“I threw them up in the air and that’s where they stuck,” she improvised for Larry’s benefit.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t around when it happened,” Kevin said. “Do you think it looks too revealing?”

Larry cleared his throat. “I guess you’d know more about that than I would. Right?”

He was trying to figure out the relationship between the two of them, Alli thought, and tried to figure out how to describe it. Reluctant colleagues? Victims of circumstance? People who bucked a trend by moving in together before their first date?

“I think we should have it shellacked and preserved for posterity,” Kevin replied, and headed for the kitchen.

Alli rattled the article in her hand. “I appreciate this. Did you have any trouble checking it out of the library?”

“I didn’t take it from the library. They make you fill out a form to say what you’re working on,” Larry said. “I got paranoid that the editors might start asking questions, since photographers don’t usually research stories. So I tried another route.”

“What route is that?”

Kevin returned with three beers. “I could pour these into glasses if you prefer, but that takes half the fizz out.”

“I like my beer out of the can,” Alli said.

Larry accepted his with thanks. There was nowhere to sit without knocking down her tent, so they stood there sipping while he continued.

“I asked Madge if she remembered any stories about those doctors. She mentioned she’d written one, and she photocopied it from her files without asking who it was for. I think she knew it must be you.”

“Please thank her for me,” Alli said. “I’ll tell her in person the first chance I have.”

They stood there in increasingly awkward silence. At last Kevin turned to Larry. “Want to go to a party tomorrow night?”

That was the last thing Alli had expected him to say. Why would he invite her friend to join a bunch of cops? “What kind of party is this?”

“A casual gathering.” Kevin swallowed more beer before adding, “With plenty of women.”

“Then why did you invite me?” she asked.

“They’re the wrong kind of women. For me,” he added quickly. “But Larry might hit it off with someone. Unless you’re busy?”

The photographer managed a weak smile. “No, I’d like to come.” Alli was surprised, since at social gatherings with staff members, he always stood around looking uncomfortable. “Uh, where and when?”

Kevin wrote the details on a pad and handed them over. “There’ll be plenty of food. When you arrive, just tell whoever’s at the door that I invited you.”

“You’re sure they won’t mind?” he inquired.

“They’ll be thrilled.”

Something was wrong with this picture. Alli began to have an unpleasant suspicion about the whole party scenario, at least as far as it concerned Kevin. However, she didn’t want to air her concern in front of Larry.

She made polite conversation until they finished their beers. Then she escorted her friend outside and thanked him again for the article.

“I’ll keep my eyes open for anything else about those doctors,” he told her.

Alli wanted to hug him. “You’re my lifeline. I miss you and everybody else, with a few exceptions.”

“About this Kevin guy,” Larry said. “Is he…I mean, are you two…?”

“Dating?” She shook her head. “I had to get out of my apartment. Don’t tell anyone, but I think Mayor LeMott was having me followed.” She decided not to mention the shooting. That would be too big a deal to expect him to keep hush-hush. “So here I am.”

“You and Kevin are old friends?”

“Sort of.” Seeing his confusion, she clarified, “He’s a private detective. We’re helping each other on a case.”

“I think he likes you,” Larry warned.

“He probably likes a lot of women,” Alli said. “But not particularly me.”

“Oh, yeah? I’ll bet he doesn’t let them hang their underwear in his living room.”

“I didn’t exactly obtain his permission to do that.” She resisted the urge to pat Larry’s freckled cheek. “Trust me, there’s nothing going on.”

“It’s none of my business, anyway,” he replied. “And it was nice of him to invite me for tomorrow. I would like to meet a girl.”

She hoped Kevin was right about Larry’s chances. “See you at the party.”

“You bet!”

After he drove away through the tree-lined neighborhood, Alli remembered Kevin’s advice, so she borrowed his garage opener and put her car away. When she returned, she found him standing by the fireplace reading Madge Leeky’s article.

“Anything useful?” she asked.

“It’s mostly puffery,” he said without looking up. “But there’s some interesting background.”

Alli strolled to the master bedroom. She kept expecting Kevin to ask what she was doing, but he seemed to be absorbed in the article.

It was time to check out her suspicions about what he had up his sleeve. She intended to be prepared for whatever might happen tomorrow night.

Out of his sight, she opened the master closet, where a row of dry-cleaner–bagged suits and shirts met her gaze. Pairs of perfectly creased jeans lay folded over hangers. Even his sweatshirts appeared ironed.

But there was nothing here to confirm her theory. She didn’t see so much as a forgotten skirt tucked in one corner or a high-heeled shoe left on the carpeted floor.

Quietly, she moved into the kitchen. A peek into a few cabinets and drawers revealed only that Kevin’s passion for order extended to hanging pot lids in place and organizing utensils in plastic trays. The man was seriously in need of some craziness.

The refrigerator offered Alli’s last hope. Opening it, she nearly uttered a whoop of triumph.

On the shelves sat no fewer than three casseroles, which, upon inspection, turned out to be filled with a tuna-noodle dish, a bean mixture and potatoes au gratin. No bachelor since the dawn of time had ever made three casseroles simultaneously.

She found further evidence in the freezer. Foil-wrapped packages fixed with “From the kitchen of” labels had been marked “meat loaf,” “chocolate cake” and “beef stew.”

The scary part was that the labels had three different names on them. These goodies had come from the kitchens of Heloise, Barbara and Betsy.

Kevin didn’t want a date to keep his ex-girlfriend at bay as she’d surmised. He was juggling three women, and he expected to show up with a fourth!

“Having a good time?” his voice asked close to her ear.

Alli gave a guilty start. Although her instincts urged her to brazen it out by claiming she was hungry, she decided not to lie.

Closing the freezer, she pivoted to face Kevin. He stood inches away, a mocking twist to his mouth.

“You haven’t told me the whole truth about tomorrow night,” she challenged.

Was that guilt fleeting across his face? “Certainly not. I haven’t told you anything about tomorrow night.”

Alli decided to force the issue into the open. “Which of them is going to be there, or is it all three?”

“All three what?”

“Your fan club,” she said. “The ladies who bring lunch. The adoring trio of Heloise, Barbara and Betsy. Do they know about one another? Is this some kind of competition? Where does your date for the party fit in, lover boy?”

Instead of reddening with well-deserved shame, the man got a gleam in his eye. “They’re acquainted with one another.”

“What’s the plan?” Alli pressed. “Are you trying to make them jealous or what?”

“I doubt they’ll be jealous,” he said smoothly. Of all the untrustworthy men Alli had ever met, this one had the most nerve! “You’d be surprised how well we rub along.”

“Do you date them on alternate nights? What are they, your personal harem?” She didn’t really suspect him of promiscuity. However, there was the evidence, right in his refrigerator. “You may think this is funny, but I doubt that they do.”

“I don’t consider the situation funny,” Kevin responded levelly. “You want the truth? Those women are hounding me to death.”

“And you never gave them any reason to think they had some claim on you, right?” she countered.

“We used to be close,” he conceded. “But, you know, people change.”

“So you’re not currently dating any of them?”

“Not a one.”

“And they drop off casseroles purely out of habit?”

“Can I help it if hope springs eternal?” he asked.

Alli was tempted to bop him with a utensil. “I know we made a deal, but I don’t want to get involved in whatever game you’re playing.”

“Tell me something.” Stretching out one arm, he leaned against the fridge and enclosed her in a private space. “Which is crueler, to let them keep showering me with food in hopes of winning my heart, or to show up with a tasty dish like you and put a stop to it?”

Being referred to as a “tasty dish” pushed Alli over the edge. She raised one knee to the exact location of his masculine portions. “You want to hear what I think of Don Juans? I think they deserve what they get.”

The next thing she knew, he’d tossed her over one shoulder, fireman style. “Never threaten an ex-cop,” Kevin advised, and hauled her through the house into the master suite.

Alli waited until he’d almost reached the bed before she kicked out, made contact with the bed frame and shoved in the opposite direction. Releasing a string of swearwords, Kevin staggered backward.

As he stumbled, Alli felt herself begin to slide. It occurred to her that she should have given more thought to the fact that, if he fell, she was going down with him.

Or maybe underneath him.

At the last moment, Kevin managed to avoid dropping her entirely. Instead, he ricocheted across the room and flopped her onto the mattress before toppling across her.

He did more than knock the air out of her lungs. He landed in such a position that, had they not both been wearing slacks, they’d have become lovers by default.

Alli could trace every thoroughly male detail of his anatomy. The process was heightened by the fact that he’d become inexplicably but impressively aroused.

If Kevin Vickers expected to add her to his harem, he was the least perceptive man in history. And she intended to leave him in no doubt of that.

KEVIN WISHED he did have a string of adoring mistresses. They might have taken the edge off his desire, in which case he wouldn’t be responding to Alli Gardner like an overgrown adolescent.

He’d only been joking when he tossed her over his shoulder. He hadn’t intended to do anything except set her on her feet once they got in here.

Still, he understood Alli well enough not to let on what he was thinking. He pitied the man who ever became vulnerable to her, even by so much as an apology.

“Is this what you had in mind when you decided to drag me down on top of you?” he asked.

She sputtered. “I was trying to discourage you, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I judge people’s intentions by their actions, and here we are,” he replied. “So if you’re curious about what those other ladies find so irresistible…”

“Kevin,” Alli said.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Sorry.” He rolled off. “Normally, I approach a lady with more finesse.”

She sat up, hair tangling around her face and her emerald top revealing a tantalizing strip of lean waistline. The sight of her made Kevin’s groin tighten harder, entirely against his will.

He wasn’t normally attracted to shoot-from-the-hip women. His type was more like Lisette, who, when it came to intimacies, had waited for him to make the first move, and the second and the third. He’d found her tantalizing at first, until he began to wonder if she ever experienced true passion.

Alli’s boldness tantalized him with possibilities. He’d be willing to bet she could match him every step of the way.

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