Baby's First Christmas

But then, he hadn’t foreseen Marlene.

Her eyes lost their sheen and grew hard. “That means I would have to give up custody.”

Now she understood. “Exactly.”

She felt like pacing to rid herself of the sudden edginess that had seized her. But pacing seemed too much like running, and that would let him see that he was unnerving her. She remained where she was.

“I don’t know if you’re crazy, or if the air here is a little too clean for you after all this L.A. smog and it’s clouded your brain. Either way, I have no intention of giving up this baby.” She glared at him. “It wasn’t easy for me to make up my mind to go this route, but I’ve done it. This baby is mine.”

She was still young, there would be other babies for her. But there would never be another piece of Derek, and his legacy would mean the world to his father. “You would be compensated.”

If he had tried, he couldn’t have come up with a worse thing to say. Her expression turned stony as she pressed her lips together. “I think you’d better go.”

He had to try again and make her see reason. “Ms. Bailey—”

She was through being nice. “Go, or I swear I’ll have Sally borrow some hungry dogs and have them satisfy their appetite on your carcass.”

She was babbling. He chalked it up to her condition. “There’s no reason to get nasty—”

Her mouth went dry. “No reason? No reason?” With the flat of her hand planted on his chest, she caught him off guard and pushed him toward the door. “Have you been paying attention to your end of the conversation, Mr. Travis?” Marlene’s voice went up an octave as she pushed him again. “You’ve just asked me to make a profit on my baby. Not even my father was that unfeeling, and he pretty much set the standard for being cold-blooded.”

He had to make her understand. He wasn’t being cold-blooded. He was being the exact opposite. He was attempting to prevent his father’s heartbreak and give the child a heritage. “This grandchild will mean a great deal to my father.”

She wanted him out. Now. “Fine, we’ll visit. Often, if necessary.” Her hand on the doorknob, she conceded one small point. “The baby could use a grandfather. Now get out of here before I forget that I am a lady—a very large lady, but a lady nonetheless.”

He had no intention of leaving yet. He examined the situation. His resolution to gain custody didn’t waiver, but there were more things to be gotten with honey than with vinegar, and no one appreciated that more than he did. His agitation over the situation had made him temporarily lose sight of that.

Sullivan tried again. “Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot—”

Maybe? “That wouldn’t be an understatement even if you were a centipede.” Her expression remained cold. “I’d like you to leave my house.”

He couldn’t leave, not until he felt certain they at least were making some headway. Sullivan damned his brother from the bottom of his soul for placing him in this miserable position. “Perhaps—”

There was no “perhaps” about it. Her hand tightened around the knob as she prepared to yank the door open. If she could have, she would have booted him out.

“Now!”

The doorbell rang just then, an answer to a silent prayer. Marlene swung the door open, ready to enlist the aid of anyone on the other side.

The tall, slender man in the black turtleneck sweater, black slacks and blue-gray windbreaker looked from Travis to Marlene. From his expression, he was accustomed to domestic discord. His eyes rested on Marlene.

“Mrs. Bailey?”

“Ms.,” she corrected with more verve than she customarily would have. It was men like Travis who made her grateful that she’d never married. “But you have the surname right.” She looked pointedly at Sullivan. “It’s Bailey.” She said the name with emphasis. “And it’s going to remain that way.”

She wasn’t talking about herself, she was talking about the baby, Sullivan knew. He wasn’t going to get anywhere today. Resigned, he took his wallet out of his breast pocket and extracted a pearl gray business card. He held it out to her. “This is my number.”

Marlene took the card and folded it in half without looking at it.

The action piqued his temper, but he held on to it. Flaring tempers were for children. People in his position didn’t have the luxury of losing their tempers, and he knew that the harder he pushed, the more it would make her dig in. She needed time to think this over; he could appreciate that. In time, he felt confident she would arrive at the right choice.

“We’ll get together and discuss this further when you’re feeling more rational.”

The pompous ass. Did he think that money entitled him to destroy lives? “I’m afraid that day will never come, Travis. This is about as rational as I get with people who want to buy my baby.”

Spencer scowled. “Problem?” he asked Marlene.

“It was just leaving,” Marlene said sweetly. “Weren’t you, Mr. Travis?”

There was nothing to be gained at the moment by remaining. “For the time being.”

“I think the lady means forever,” Spencer observed mildly.

Marlene looked at the man on her doorstep. Travis had made her so angry, she’d nearly forgotten about her meeting with the private investigator. “John Spencer, I presume?”

A smile brought out the creases around his mouth. “At your service.”

Murphy’s law. All these years, nothing. Now suddenly the house was overflowing with men. Why hadn’t this happened nine months ago, when she had made up her mind that her life wasn’t going to be an empty shell any longer?

She turned toward the private investigator. She no longer needed him to discover the identity of her baby’s father, but there might be a few things she did want him to look into. “You’re just in time to help me show Mr. Travis out.”

Spencer smiled. “My pleasure.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sullivan told him. He crossed the threshold, then turned and looked at Marlene. “Keep the card, Ms. Bailey, and call me. We really do need to talk.”

With an exaggerated motion, Marlene tore the card in half as Spencer obligingly closed the door on Sullivan for her.

“I wouldn’t sit by the telephone waiting if I were you,” she called through the door.

This definitely did not have the earmarks of something that was going to shape up well, Sullivan thought as he exited the freeway. Marlene Bailey was not going to be easy to win over. More than likely, she would be downright impossible.

The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer. He should really have those words branded somewhere on his anatomy after a life of being Derek’s guardian angel.

Derek. Damn, but he was going to miss that heartless son of a bitch.

Sullivan brushed a tear from his cheek as if it were an uninvited intruder. He tried not to think what a waste it all was, dying at thirty-two in a neighborhood his brother had no business living.

Damn you, Derek.

He had another errand to see to before he finally went home.

Sullivan had put off talking to his father as long as possible, hoping that he could temper the bad with the good when he finally told the old man what he’d discovered. Now he was going to have to give it to his father straight.

He wasn’t looking forward to it.

When Sullivan entered the living room, Oliver Travis appeared to be dozing over his side of a chess board. Sullivan arched an inquiring eyebrow toward Osborne, his father’s housekeeper. The thin man shrugged.

Tomorrow, Sullivan thought. This could definitely keep until tomorrow. Maybe by tomorrow, Marlene would have a change of heart. He turned quietly on his heel.

“Don’t skulk away.” His father’s voice stopped him just as Sullivan reached the threshold. “I’m just meditating. Can’t a man close his eyes without everyone thinking he’s asleep, or dead?” Oliver pressed the controls on his armrest and brought the motorized wheelchair around. “Well, you certainly took your time coming to me.” He didn’t wait for Sullivan’s reply. “So, did you go through Derek’s effects?”

“Yes.” Damn, this was hard. He knew how his father was going to take the news, and he dreaded what it would do to him.

“And it was just another one of his cruel jokes, right?” Watery green eyes looked up at him hopefully, charging him to give an affirmative answer. “He didn’t sell himself, did he?”

It would be a great deal easier to lie and say it had all been a cruel hoax. But then he would have to eat those words should the information ever come to light. Sullivan exchanged looks with Osborne.

The old man knew, he thought. Somehow, he knew. But then, he’d always had an uncanny ability to see through them all.

“No, it wasn’t a joke, Dad. Derek really did go to a sperm bank.”

Oliver’s jaw slackened, and anger colored his shallow cheeks. “Buy it back!” he thundered. “Hang the cost, just buy it back.”

Sullivan shook his head. “It’s too late for that.”

“Too late?” Oliver uttered the question as if air were leaking out of him. “What do you mean, it’s too late? How late?”

“A woman’s already been impregnated.”

For a moment Sullivan was afraid that his father was suffering another stroke. The old man’s face turned red, and he looked as if he were struggling to breathe. But he waved both men back when they approached him.

“Who is she? What kind of woman would do that? No, never mind who she is. I don’t care. The less I know, the better.” Oliver seemed to make up his mind instantly. “I want that child, Sullivan. Do what you have to do. Offer her the moon, whatever she wants, but I want that child.”

Momentarily energized, he swung his chair around to face Osborne. “We can turn Derek’s old room into a nursery.”

Sullivan knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as that. He didn’t want his father riding for a fall.

“Dad—” he began.

Oliver didn’t want to hear any protests. He was old and had earned the right to have things his way. His oldest son was gone, and now here was another chance to make things right, to do things for Derek’s child the way he hadn’t been able to do for Derek.

It was as if Providence had smiled down on him again, giving him a second opportunity.

“Just do it,” Oliver ordered, turning his piercing gaze to the chess board. “I don’t want to play that silly game any more, Osborne. I’m tired. Take me to my room.”

The pencil-thin man in the black livery rose. “Very good, sir.” The look Osborne gave Sullivan was one filled with compassion.

Sullivan was left standing in the living room, feeling bone tired.

Chapter Three

I t had been one of those extremely long days that felt as if it would never end. Marlene sighed as she kicked off her high heels and entered the living room. The thick rug felt good beneath her stockinged feet, and she allowed herself to absorb the sensation, letting it settle over her. It always took her a while to unwind.

She had thought, once she had gotten through her fourth month, that she would cease to feel so tired. But she supposed she hadn’t taken into account marathon days that began at six and lasted until seven in the evening. Tonight she felt like the rag that had been used to wipe the benches at Dodger Stadium.

Sinking down in the wing chair, she raised her feet onto the ottoman. Even that little movement was a tremendous effort.

She knew she really should make more of an attempt to cut back on her hours. Dr. Pollack had been pretty adamant about it, saying that if she wasn’t careful, she ran the risk of coming down with toxemia. Then she would really be out of commission. That warning had put the fear of God into her. Temporarily. Marlene had compromised by restructuring her work day—down to ten hours from sixteen.

Except for today.

A rueful smile lifted the corners of her mouth. God knew she tried, but in reality she didn’t know how not to work. And she had completely forgotten how to actually relax for more than a few minutes at a time. Her usual pattern was to work until she was numb and then collapse into bed.

Just like Father, she remembered ruefully. The comparison didn’t please her.

Marlene lifted her hair from her neck. It was the end of November, but she felt uncomfortably warm. She hoped it wasn’t a warning sign that something was wrong.

Her thoughts returned to her father, making her frown. She liked to think that she was different from James Bailey. Yet here she was, working long hours and still living in the family house, just as he had continued to do after her mother had left.

The house was hers now, just as the business was. She hadn’t been able to convince him to divide it equally between Nicole and herself in his will. He’d hung on to the feud with Nicole until the day he died.

After his death, Marlene had tried to persuade Nicole to move in with her, especially after Craig had been killed in a race car accident. But, widowed and pregnant, Nicole had remained stubbornly against it. To this day she wanted nothing to do with her father’s things and insisted on going it alone. There were times when Nicole could be maddeningly independent, Marlene mused.

Just as she was.

It was a Bailey trait, Marlene supposed. But it did tend to get in the way when the Baileys’ dealt with each other. It would have been better for Nicole to have moved back in. Just as it would have been better if she had never run off to marry Craig in the first place.

Marlene let her head drop back against the padded chair. That was all in the past, she thought. Her hand rested on her abdomen. And this was her future, at least a very important part of it.

The house was almost eerily quiet. Sally had gone to bed after straightening up the kitchen, complaining about the meager dinner Marlene had consumed.

“You’re doing harm to the baby, see if you’re not,” Sally had announced, her dark brows forming a single accusing line over the bridge of her hawklike nose.

Marlene had let her grumble. She knew Sally enjoyed fussing over her. The old woman anticipated the birth of the baby almost more than she did. Sally liked to boast that after the baby’s arrival, she was going to add nanny to her résumé, right after housekeeper.

Sally didn’t need a résumé, Marlene thought. She intended to keep the woman on forever. Without Sally, she would be lost.

She passed her hand over her eyes. The beginning of a headache was taking hold. It did nothing to improve her mood. She hated these mood swings that insisted on battering her. Something else she had been unprepared for in this pregnancy.

One more month to go, she promised herself. It seemed endless when she thought of it in single minutes.

The phone rang, startling her. Habit had her glancing at her watch before answering. Nine o’clock. She wondered if it was Harris calling from London. She’d sent him there a week ago to handle the final negotiations of their first transatlantic account.

She preferred handling everything on her own and had wanted to make the trip herself. But her due date was less than a month away, and she didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. She wanted nothing to ruin this precious opportunity she had at becoming a mother.

If that meant trusting someone else to take care of the negotiations for the agency, so be it. If this deal fell through, then there would be other contracts. But there was never going to be another child for her. This one was it.

That feeling alone, she thought, separated her from her father. Nothing had ever gotten in the way of negotiations for James Bailey. Not his children, not his wife, not the death of his father. It was always business—first, last and always.

If Robby had lived, perhaps things would have been different.

She was getting maudlin. This had to stop. Marlene jerked up the receiver on the third ring, shaking off her mood. “Yes?”

She snapped out greetings like a commando. He wondered if it was going to set the tone of their conversation. “Ms. Bailey?”

The rich voice that filled the receiver didn’t belong to Harris. His was higher with an undertone of nervousness that never left him. She knew instantly who it was. The man whose calls she’d refused to return at the office.

Marlene tensed. “Why are you calling me at home?”

“I would think that would be obvious. You won’t return my calls during office hours.” He had left a dozen messages in the last three days. She hadn’t returned any of them.

She had hoped that he would get the point and tire of calling her. Wishful thinking. “How did you get this number?” she demanded.

He laughed and the sound was oddly warming, like wine drunk too quickly on an empty stomach. Marlene pressed her hand to her forehead. She was more tired than she’d thought.

Getting her number had been relatively easy with his connections. “To quote a cliché,” which might be more than apt here, he thought, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, Ms. Bailey.”

“Not always,” she snapped. Why didn’t he just go away?

Charming to the end, he mused. And yet, there was something about her that was compelling.

He read the message in her voice loud and clear, then disregarded it. “You’ve had a few days to think about our conversation. I’d like the opportunity to discuss it further with you. How about lunch tomorrow?”

When hell freezes over. “Sorry, I’m busy.”

“All right, dinner then.” He had a previous engagement, but this was more important than attending one of Alan and Cynthia Breckinridge’s parties.

She smiled smugly. Usually, her evenings were free, but not tomorrow night. It spared her the trouble of lying. She’d accepted the invitation to the party over a month ago. “I’m sorry, I have a social function I have to attend tomorrow evening.”

“Black tie?” he guessed.

She didn’t see why that would make a difference to him. “Yes.”

“Lucky for you I own one.”

Marlene sat upright, removing her feet from the ottoman. Was he actually inviting himself along? “What you have in your closet doesn’t interest me, Travis. You’re not invited.”

He could easily swing an invitation, too, if necessary. Almost anyone throwing what Marlene termed a social function had to be on his list of acquaintances. If not his, then his father’s.

“You need an escort, don’t you?”

There was no end to this man’s gall. “What makes you think I don’t have one?”

He laughed. This time, the sound annoyed the hell out of her. “You went to a sperm bank to become pregnant, Marlene. I think it’s safe to assume that you do a lot of things by yourself. So, when do I pick you up?”

He’d called her Marlene, not Ms. Bailey. He was getting way too personal.

“You don’t.” With that, she broke the connection and left the receiver off the hook. She let out a long breath. That should stop him from annoying her tonight.

Tomorrow was something she would deal with when the time came—and it would come all too soon. Right now, she didn’t want to think about it.

Nicole eased the door open and slipped quietly across the threshold into the office. Marlene’s secretary, Wanda, had momentarily stepped away from her desk, so there was no one to announce her. She liked it that way.

She observed her older sister for a moment before she greeted her. Marlene was so immersed in her work, she was oblivious to the fact that there was anyone else in the office with her.

Marlene worked too hard, Nicole thought reprovingly. She’d always worked too hard. There’d never been a financial need to do so, but Nicole knew that for Marlene there had been an emotional one.

As if James Bailey had ever noticed.

Nicole remained in the doorway and crossed her arms over the swell of her abdomen. It’d been a little over a year since their father had died, but it still felt odd seeing Marlene sitting behind that desk.

The few times that she had been ushered into this office along with her brother and sister, her father had been sitting in that very chair. Like as not, he would be bent over his work, just as Marlene was now. He would ignore their presence until the last possible moment, even when one of them made a noise to catch his attention.

Whether it was to put them in their place or because he really was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice them, Nicole never knew. But even as a child, she’d been aware of being angry. Angry because he was making all of them feel so insignificant.

Or trying to.

And now Marlene was sitting there in his place, frowning over a report just the way their father had done countless times before.

Nicole felt like taking her sister and shaking some sense into her, forcing her to realize what she was in danger of becoming. Making her stop before it was too late. Before Marlene traveled down the same road their father had.

Nicole sighed quietly. Maybe things would change once the baby finally arrived.

At least she hoped so.

Nicole closed the door behind her and walked over to the desk. She cleared her throat loudly. “You realize, of course, that you are going to have to stop working long enough to give birth. Two, three hours might be forever lost.”

Marlene looked up, startled. She hadn’t heard her sister come in. Nodding a greeting to Nicole, Marlene straightened, pressing her back against the chair’s padded upholstery. She flexed her shoulders slightly. There was a crick in them that traveled down the entire length of her spine.

“I’m trying to work that into my schedule.” Marlene smiled fondly at her sister. She blinked, clearing her mind of statistics. It wasn’t easy. They seemed to cram her head just like the baby crammed her body. “What are you doing here?”

Nicole glanced at Marlene’s desk. The surface was an ode to compulsive organization, folders all neatly piled and placed parallel to the edge of the desk. No flurry of papers the way there would have been if she was working here instead.

But advertising campaigns weren’t her forte. Neither was neatness. They would have clashed inside of a day. It was better this way.

Nicole moved a folder with the tip of her index finger, her eyes on Marlene’s. “Well, I thought that since Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain would come to Mohammed.”

Very carefully, Marlene returned the folder to its original position. It made her feel better to have things exactly where she wanted them. Where she could easily put her hands on them when she needed them. It was comforting. The reason the company ran so smoothly was due to creativity, but it also owed its success in no small part to organization. Her organization. That meant a great deal to her.

Marlene nodded at her sister’s widened waist. “More like the mountain coming to the mountain and forming a huge range.”

Holding on to the armrests, Nicole lowered herself into the chair before Marlene’s desk. Due roughly a couple of weeks after her sister, she was larger and appeared even more so because she was almost three inches shorter.

She let out a long sigh of relief as she sat back. “I’m on my lunch break, and since you haven’t taken one in five years unless it involved a client, the odds were that I’d find you in, so I decided to pop by.”

That still didn’t explain what Nicole was doing here. Marlene knew firsthand that these days it was difficult for Nicole to just “pop by” anywhere. There had to be a reason behind this so-called spontaneous visit.

Marlene rose from her desk and rounded it until she was beside her sister. Only concern about Nicole’s welfare ever managed to get her mind off her ever increasing mound of work. “Is anything wrong?”

Nicole shrugged casually, shifting the point of focus back to her sister. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

Marlene looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

It wasn’t actually the main reason she’d stopped by, but now that she’d thought of it, Nicole followed up. “You didn’t make any sense on the telephone when I talked to you yesterday. I thought maybe things might sound a little clearer if I watched your lips while you talked.”