Who's That Baby?

“What do you know about my family?”

He blinked up from the drape of balloon-and-bow fabric he’d finally extracted from the package. “Nothing, I suppose. I just presumed—” A slow flush crawled up his throat. His smile was a little sheepish. “Touché. I guess we all fall into the stereotype trap.”

Her heart fluttered. “It’s only a trap if we can’t find the way out.”

Johnny studied her as if seeing her for the first time. A smile spread slowly, sensually, lighting his face from within. “How did you get so wise?”

“It just soaks into my head with the auburn hair rinse.”

“So that beautiful copper tone isn’t natural?”

“It would be more natural if I left those pesky gray sprouts in it.” To her horror, she giggled. “I cannot believe that I have just entrusted you with my most solemn personal secret.”

He laughed then, a genuine guffaw from the solar plexus that vibrated down her spine like a sensual massage. She’d never heard him laugh before. It nearly undid her. “Attorney-client privilege,” he said, clearly amused. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Returning his attention to the packaged crib sheet, he frowned, tore at the plastic wrap and muttered under his breath.

Claire plucked the item from his hand, removed the packaging and handed it back. Johnny held the limp cotton fabric studded with tiny balloon-and-bow stencils as if he’d never seen a fitted sheet before.

“I take it you have maid service?”

He glanced up, startled. “Certainly.”

“Ah. In that case, you are clearly inexperienced in the fine art of bed making. Allow me to demonstrate.” She took the sheet, gave it a shake. “These cupped corners are molded to fit around the crib pad, like so.”

Johnny leaned over her shoulder, watching. His scent surrounded her like soft arms, musky and sweet, an aching combination of aromatic body wash, grooming fragrance and pure man.

Her fingers trembled. She cleared her throat. “First you tuck one side over the mattress, left and right, then you smooth it over the crib pad and tuck in the far side, like so.”

“Amazing. It fits perfectly.”

If he’d smelled any better, Claire wouldn’t have been able to resist taking a nip out of his throat. “We also have these cute little blanket clips—” she rooted through a shopping bag to retrieve the package “—which fit through the mesh walls, clip to the blanket and keep the baby from kicking the blanket off.”

His eyes lit. “An excellent idea.”

“Didn’t you purchase a new crib blanket?”

“Yes, several.” He stepped over a mount of torn plastic wrap to retrieve yet another shopping bag, from which he extracted a soft, fleecy blanket embroidered with tiny sheep. “Do you think she’d prefer the yellow or the pink? I think there’s a white one, as well….”

“Yellow is fine.” Her fingers brushed his arm as she took the blanket from him. She moistened her lips, waited for the tingling to subside, then fastened the blanket clips and stepped back to view her handiwork.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Johnny struggling with a mass of wires and colorful butterflies. While clamping the crib mobile on the tubular frame, he angled a defensive glance in her direction, as if daring her to criticize the extravagance. “This one is also a music box. You wind it up, and the butterfly wings flap. It should be quite interesting for her to watch.”

She smiled. “Indeed.”

A muscle jittered at the curve of his jaw. “I do have a responsibility to make her life as comfortable as possible for the time that we are together.”

Claire’s smile faded. “She’s your daughter, Johnny. You’ll be spending time together for the rest of your lives.”

The subtle tilt of a brow was the only indication he’d heard her. “Perhaps the star-collage mobile would be more appropriate for an infant of her age.”

To give herself a moment for thought, Claire busied herself clearing some of the packing materials from the floor. There was something going on here, something Johnny wasn’t telling her. On the one hand, he insisted that he was merely caring for the child temporarily, until her mother returned. If that were the case, why had he spent hundreds of dollars on infant equipment for a weekend of baby-sitting?

There was only one way to find out, Claire decided. The direct approach. She glanced up, saw him tightening the mobile clamp on the crib frame. “When is Samantha returning, Johnny?”

His fingers paused in their task, but only for a moment. “Soon.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you know more than you did last night, don’t you?” When he didn’t reply, she dumped an armful of trash by the front door, then circled the diminutive, net-sided portable crib to confront him. “You made some phone calls this morning, didn’t you? You know something.”

He studied a small purple-and-pink butterfly, rubbing a gleaming plastic wing between his thumb and forefinger. “I know that when Samantha does return, she’ll need help to care for Lucy properly.”

“And you plan to give her that help?”

“Of course.”

“By retaining custody of Lucy?”

Startled, he glanced at Claire, then averted his gaze. “I’m not qualified to care for a child.” His gaze settled on the bowl of murky water that Claire presumed had once been occupied by an unfortunate and now defunct creature of the finned persuasion. “I will, however, see that Samantha has assistance from those who are qualified.”

“You’re making this all sound very mysterious.”

The pain in his eyes shocked her. He raked his fingers through his hair, took a step backward and sat heavily in his lounge chair. “I spoke with Hank Miller this morning.”

“The sheriff?”

He nodded. “Hank placed a few discreet phone calls to friends in the Albuquerque police department. It seems that Samantha’s boyfriend, one Rodney F. Frye, is well-known to them. He was arrested for burglary last week. Sam bailed him out. He didn’t show up for the arraignment.”

Claire’s heart sank. “He skipped bail?”

“Apparently.” Johnny rubbed his forehead. “Hank used credit-card slips to track them as far as Montana. It appears they’re heading to Canada.”

Claire sat slowly on the sofa beside the dozing infant. “If that’s true, it doesn’t seem Samantha is planning on returning any time soon.”

Johnny shrugged. “Samantha is not a bad person, but she is an emotionally frail one. She left Lucy with me out of love for her, not because she believed the child would be an inconvenience.”

“That’s an assumption on your part.” Claire flinched at the roughness of her own tone, but couldn’t suppress her anger at this woman. “So when she shows up, you’re simply going to hand Lucy back to her?”

The allegation clearly annoyed him. “Of course not. I will, however, see that Lucy has the best professional care available, and that Samantha receives the help and counseling she needs until she’s able to be a proper mother to our child.” Johnny studied Claire intently, extended a pleading hand. “You don’t understand what Samantha has been through. She’s had a difficult life—”

“So that makes it all right for her to choose a felonious lover over the well-being of her own child?” Unable to contain herself, Claire stood quickly, spun away from the man who was regarding her with unnerving acuity. “A child is not a puppy to be bounced from owner to owner every time it’s too much trouble! No matter how loving a caretaker you purchase for Lucy, no matter how luxurious her surroundings or how many expensive stuffed animals you buy her, that little girl will never forget that her own mother abandoned her. She’ll live with that for the rest of her life, Johnny, the rest of her natural life. How can you defend that? How can you defend a woman who would do that to her own child?”

Johnny regarded her, his dark, intense eyes boring straight into the very core of her. “You seem to be taking this rather personally.”

Claire wiped the moisture from her eye, angry with herself for having revealed too much. “I take child neglect personally. Everyone should.”

He said nothing for a moment, simply leaned back in the chair and studied her in silence. Claire felt her skin heat. She absently smoothed her chambray shirt, rearranged the covers around the sleeping infant on the cushion beside her.

“Tell me about yourself, Claire.” It was a command, issued softly but in the tone of a man used to having his requests honored without question.

Sharing personal information didn’t come easily to Claire. “There’s not much to tell. I grew up like you did, with middle-class parents who worked hard and loved me the best they could. I went to college, became a doctor, settled in Buttonwood and am happy with my life.”

“Are you really?”

“Am I really what?”

“Happy with your life.”

“Yes.”

“And your parents, do you miss them?”

“We talk on the phone every week, but yes, I miss them.” She angled a glance. “Are you close to your parents?”

“No.”

When he said nothing further, she prodded him gently. “Do they live nearby?”

“My father is dead. My mother lives in California with her new husband.”

“Oh.” She fidgeted with the corner of the baby blanket. “How old were you when your mother remarried?”

Clearly, the conversation had shifted into forbidden territory. Johnny responded, but with a gruffness that brooked no further discussion. “I was twelve. She walked out on my father and me, so when it comes to mothers abandoning their children, I have some small experience with that.”

Claire nodded, was shocked by the unexpected sound of her own small voice whispering from a place she hadn’t explored in a very long time. “I do, too.” She paused a beat, gathered her courage to share something that few people knew about her, something she rarely discussed because it was too personal, too painful. “I never knew my birth parents. My mother gave me to an orphanage when I was Lucy’s age. No one knows who my father was. I was lucky enough to have been adopted by dear, loving people who gave me everything I ever needed in life. Everything except—” her voice broke “—except the knowledge of who I really am and where I come from.”

“That’s important to you?”

“Yes.” She sniffed, dabbed the wetness on her cheek with the back of her hand. “It will be important to Lucy, too.”

“Samantha has not abandoned Lucy.”

“Hasn’t she?”

His jaw clenched, his fingers tightened into a white-knuckled fist. “No, she hasn’t. She wouldn’t.”

Tears welled in Claire’s eyes, blurring her vision, stinging her lids. She gazed over her shoulder, unable to quell the trembling in her limbs. “You must have loved her very much,” she whispered, and was stunned by the pain that thought evoked. “You must love her still.”

Johnny went ashen. He swallowed hard, glanced from the sleeping infant on the sofa to Claire, then back again. “I never loved Samantha,” he said quietly. “Nor did she love me.”

Whatever Claire had expected to hear, that wasn’t it.

Johnny inhaled deeply, leaned back in the lounge chair and covered his eyes with his hand. “Samantha and I had been friends since childhood. I ran into her again shortly after my divorce.”

“I didn’t know you’d been married.”

He shrugged. “My ex-wife’s father owned the Phoenix law firm where I’d planned to spend a long and lucrative career. We had a whirlwind courtship, after which I was determined to lavish her with every imaginable luxury. Unfortunately, that took a great deal of my time.”

“She felt neglected?”

“Yes. So I bought two tickets to the Bahamas, and came home early one afternoon with them to surprise her.” He plucked a piece of packing material off his slacks, studied it as if it were a small nugget. “She was surprised, all right. So was the guy in bed with her.”

“Oh, Lord.” Claire sat heavily on the sofa. “I’m so sorry, Johnny.”

“Don’t be. It was for the best.” He flicked the tiny piece of plastic away, brushed his palms together. “I moved back to Buttonwood, started my own practice and the rest is history.”

“That’s when you and Samantha, er, began your relationship?”

Pursing his lips, he furrowed his brow. “I wouldn’t call it a relationship, exactly, but she’d just experienced yet another emotional breakup with the volatile Mr. Frye, so we were both alone, miserable and in need of comfort. There were no promises made, no pretense of anything beyond what it was—the sharing of two friends who needed each other.”

He sighed, lowered his hand and leaned forward, propping his forearms on his knees. “Both of us understood that what we shared would be temporary. I wasn’t looking for permanence, and Sam had already spent years in a turbulent relationship in which estrangements were as routine as the sunrise, and nearly as frequent. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked when I returned from work one evening to find her closet empty except for a note saying she and Frye had reconciled yet again and they were moving to Albuquerque. Apparently, he has family in the area.”

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