Baby Of Convenience

“I see.” He studied the mother cat’s methodical grooming of her brood for a moment. “I’m certainly no expert on feline behavior, but I was under the impression that most animals chose a location in which they feel safe and comfortable for such an, er, auspicious event.”

“Yes, well, I’m afraid poor Maggie feels neither safe nor comfortable in our temporary living quarters. You see, we had to…I mean, we chose to move from an apartment in the downtown district to share a mobile home with a friend.”

Chose to move. A clever euphemism for eviction, which didn’t escape the astute Royce Burton’s notice if the knowing gleam in his eye was any clue.

“At any rate, the accommodations are rather cramped, and my friend has two older children who didn’t mean to torment Maggie, although she understandably had little tolerance for them, given her delicate condition.”

He nodded politely. “These temporary living quarters, might they be included in the mobile home park to the south of the grounds?”

Presuming he was referring to his own expansive property when he used the word grounds, Laura nodded. “It’s just temporary,” she repeated lamely. “Until we can find something that suits our needs.”

Something that was basically free, since she was currently unemployed. She’d had the audacity to slap the roving hand of her supervisor, and had been summarily dismissed from her job as a discount store clerk. At the time she’d worn her termination as a badge of honor. Now she saw it only as having sawed off her own breathing appendage. It wasn’t as if she had the luxury of pride now. She had a child to consider, a child whose mother was unemployed and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

Royce regarded her. “Sharing such modest living accommodations with another family must be difficult for you and your husband.”

“I’m divorced.” Laura’s reply was issued with more firmness than intended.

Instantly Royce’s eyes cooled in disapproval. “I see. And your friend, is he also divorced?”

“As a matter of fact, she—” Laura stressed the gender-specific pronoun and was satisfied by his guilty cringe “—is happily married, although her husband is on a temporary work assignment out of town.”

He issued a curt, apologetic nod. “Forgive the errant presumption.”

“As I said, the living arrangements are purely temporary. Unfortunately, there is hardly enough room for the people, let alone six animals.”

“May I presume that you are financially unable to secure alternative living quarters?”

That was an understatement. “The truth is that even if I found a job tomorrow it would be months before I could save up enough money to make a deposit on a larger place.”

Laura couldn’t fathom why she was telling him this, but the words nonetheless streamed out as if this powerful and put-upon individual was actually interested in the life story of a virtual stranger.

A thin laugh slipped from her lips, high-pitched and embarrassingly desperate. “I know this isn’t your problem. You can’t possibly care about my little trials and tribulations. It’s just that I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do about Maggie and her babies.”

“Aren’t there shelters for this kind of occurrence?”

Laura was horrified. “I could never put Maggie’s babies in an animal shelter.”

“Why not? That’s what they are there for.”

“They are there to take pets that nobody wants, and if they can’t find homes for them, to put them humanely out of their misery.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Royce stiffen, and was relieved to note that he didn’t detest cats enough to be immune to the horror of euthanizing healthy animals because nobody wants them.

Laura pressed her advantage. “There’s no way to find good homes for the kittens until they’re old enough to leave their mother. I mean, their little eyes aren’t even open yet.” She paused, swallowed hard. “Meanwhile, I clearly have a bit of a problem.”

“Clearly,” Royce agreed.

As Laura was mentally formulating what to say next, Marta descended the stairs carrying a frosty crystal pitcher of orange juice.

Obviously unhappy, the woman thumped the pitcher on the table, then glanced toward the corner and spotted the feline family. “Oh, Mother of God!” she shrieked. “What are those creatures doing here?”

Royce favored her with a bland stare. “At the moment, they are having lunch.”

“Box them up at once,” Marta sputtered. “Get them out of here before their hairy filth spreads into the rest of the house.”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be much of a problem,” Royce said pleasantly. “The animals will be confined to the cellar. Ms. Michaels will, of course, be allowed access at any time she deems necessary to feed them and care for their needs.”

It took a moment for Laura to decipher the significance of what had just been said.

Marta, however, reacted instantaneously. “It’s unconscionable to permit these vile creatures to remain inside your living quarters. They may be diseased, infested with parasites. It’s an abomination.”

“I suspect we’ll manage to muddle through this crisis without creating a global plague.” Royce stepped to the oak tasting table and poured two glasses of juice, handing one to Jamie, who snatched it with such excited haste that the sticky liquid sloshed on Laura’s clothing.

“What of my duties?” Marta asked. “I cannot perform my work efficiently if I am constantly interrupted.”

A covert glance confirmed the older woman’s obvious revulsion as juice ran down the toddler’s chin to soak into his tiny striped T-shirt. Obviously this was not a woman who tolerated untidiness in any form.

Royce didn’t seem particularly perturbed either by the messy process of quenching a toddler’s thirst or the potential interruption in Marta’s duties. “Then I suggest,” he told her mildly, “that you supply Ms. Michaels with a key so she may come and go without disturbing you.”

Marta went absolutely white. “You can’t be serious.”

He gave her a quiet look that rocked her back a step. “Have you known me to joke?”

Deflated, the woman merely shook her head.

“Excellent.” He turned to Laura, regarding her with a casual dispassion that didn’t quite match the probing intensity of his eyes. “I trust the arrangements meet your approval, Ms. Michaels?”

It took a moment to locate her voice, a moment during which Laura steadied the toddler’s grasp as he greedily gulped his juice. “Your offer is exceptionally generous,” she said finally. “I’m deeply grateful.”

“Then it’s settled.” With a brusque nod, he spun on his heel, ascended the curving stairs and disappeared with the incensed Marta right on his heels.

Laura could hardly believe her good fortune. A man who supposedly abhorred cats had just offered her not only the unfettered use of his wine cellar as a feline nursery, but was also allowing her free access to provide the care Maggie and her kittens would require.

Spirits soaring, Laura was convinced that the spate of bad luck that had so relentlessly plagued her was finally at an end.

In truth, it was just beginning.

The group of tailored financiers gathered in the leather-bound study, droning on about cash-flow projections and capital investment forecasts.

Royce tried to concentrate on the figures. Decisions made here would affect lives, thousands of lives.

Despite outward success, the market share of Burton Technologies was slipping. Research and development was stagnant. They desperately needed an infusion of cash. Investment capital. Lots of it.

This was a business discussion of tremendous importance. And all he could think about was the color of Laura Michaels’s eyes.

They were green. Not loden, not olive, not even the hue of warm grass in springtime. Rather, they were a multihued tapestry of every verdant tint and tone that nature could supply.

In the bright foyer light they had seemed almost transparent, the pale shade of cymbidium orchid leaves brightened with sparkling emerald. In the amber illumination of the cellar, they’d taken on the golden glow of a summer pond at sunset.

More than the color of those haunting eyes, Royce had been affected by their clarity. The lush young woman with the haunting smile had hidden nothing, exposed all.

He was fairly certain she was unaware that her emotions were so blatantly revealed. He also doubted she realized that her habit of scraping her lower lip with her teeth while trying to construct an evasively truthful reply was quite revealing to a man who’d created a career out discerning information that others wished to hide.

The child was interesting, too. Obviously well-loved and carefully nurtured, judging by his bright-eyed curiosity. Dark eyes, too. Deep brown, coffee-colored, closer to Royce’s own eye color than to that of his mother’s.

The boy’s fear of loud voices was telling as well. He wondered about it, didn’t care for the speculation crowding his thoughts. His own father had been a controlled man, neither outgoing nor withdrawn. He’d been brilliant, of course. Royce had loved him, admired him, had been desperate to please him.

He’d never succeeded in pleasing him, but might have done so eventually if he hadn’t died so young, leaving Royce’s mother to work herself into an early grave trying to support herself and her son. Having found himself alone at a relatively early age, he’d learned to rely on self-approval for motivation.

For the most part that had been enough.

A familiar voice broke into his thoughts. “What is that abominable sound?” Dave Henderson was asking. “You’d better have a service call on the air-conditioning, Royce. It sounds as if one of the unit bearings has blown.”

Blinking, Royce considered the sound in question, a series of thin squeaks emanating from the air ducts.

Mewing kittens, he decided, and was besieged by fresh annoyance at the intrusion.

He couldn’t fathom why he’d allowed the irksome animals to stay. It was foolish, and Royce Burton was not a man who accepted foolishness, not even from himself.

“The presentation needs work,” Royce announced, anxious to redirect attention back to the problem at hand. “You’ve shown how the infusion of investment capital will assist our expansion efforts without offering a reciprocal incentive.”

Henderson blinked, swallowed, touched his tie. “I know. That’s rather a problem, since there doesn’t appear to be any. We need them. They don’t need us.”

Royce understood that Henderson was referring to the Belgian directors of Marchandt Limited, the most prestigious investment firm in Europe. “Then we’ll have to develop a reason for them to need us.”

“There is one option.…” Henderson’s voice trailed off as he feigned flipping through a thick document, spiral-bound and bristling with sticky yellow notes. “We could, ah, offer to transfer our research and development division to Brussels. Economic incentive to their personal turf, so to speak.”

The suggestion came as no surprise to Royce. He doubted any of his staff could conceive of an option he hadn’t already considered, and discarded. “We’d lose thousands of local jobs.”

“An unfortunate side effect,” Henderson agreed.

Steepling his fingers, Royce spoke quietly. “Mill Creek is a small town. An economic blow like that could destroy its economy.”

“There would be a significant economic effect, to be sure. However, Mill Creek existed before Burton Technologies chose it to be the homesite, and would still exist if we moved the entire complex somewhere else.” Henderson sighed, rubbed his forehead. “Hell, I don’t like the idea, either, but if there’s any other option I haven’t thought of it.”

Neither had Royce. “Then keep thinking.”

“But—”

“That option is unacceptable. Come up with another.” Royce stood. Six stiff-suited executives lurched to their feet in unison. “We have six weeks before the Marchandt directors arrive. I expect all the loose ends to be tied up before then and a suitable quid pro quo available for negotiation. Marta will show you out.”

With that, the executives filed out of the study, talking quietly among themselves. Only Henderson stayed behind, which wasn’t unusual since he was a trusted friend as well as Royce’s right-hand man.

“About those loose ends,” Dave said as Royce poured aged Scotch into a pair of cut-crystal glasses. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.”

Royce handed his friend one glass, took a sip from his own and studied a thin line of moisture forming across his finance director’s upper lip.

Dave took a healthy gulp, wheezed, coughed, then twirled the glass between his palms. “You know, Europeans are not always a liberal bunch, particularly when it comes to business. They have strictly conservative views about money, and about—” he sucked a breath, took another swallow “—family.”

Royce waited.

Dave cleared his throat. “Marchandt himself is Old World, comes from generations of wealth and power. He can list his ancestors back to the time of the Crusades. He inherited the company from his father, as did his father before him, and already has his sons in the business ready to carry on the family tradition.” Puffing his cheeks, he blew out a breath, meeting Royce’s gaze directly. “Do you remember that magazine article that came out a while back?”

“That silly ‘Bachelor of the Year’ thing in Finance and World Reports?” Royce snorted. He remembered the article well. He had fired the marketing executive who’d insisted he give the interview in the first place. “Idiotic piece of tabloid trash. I canceled my subscription in protest.”

“Yes, well, to you it’s tabloid trash, to Western Europe it’s considered the pinnacle of financial trade information. When I went to Brussels last month, Marchandt himself had a copy of that issue on the corner of his desk.”

That got Royce’s attention. He leaned forward, ignored the telltale jitter of a muscle stress-twitching just below his ear. “You’re just getting around to mentioning this to me?”

Dave shrugged. “I’d already handled the situation.”

“How?”

“I told him the article was basically a publicity stunt by a rogue marketing executive who was no longer employed by our firm.”

“Good.”

“I told him there was nothing to the allegations of wild parties, beautiful starlets on each arm and the speculation that you were the real father of Madonna’s love child.”

“Good.”

#8220;I told him you were committed to your, er, family.”

Royce narrowed his gaze. “I don’t have a family.”

“Well, boss, you’ve got six weeks to hunt one up. I told him you were a doting husband and father.” Dave drained his glass, set it on a polished mahogany desk by the study window and heaved the long-suffering sigh of a man ascending a gallows. “Am I fired?”

“No.” Setting his own glass aside, Royce brushed his palms lightly and pushed away from the plush burgundy recliner against which his hip had been propped. “The formality of employment termination isn’t required for a dead man.”

Dave paled visibly.

Muttering, Royce spun away. There were cats in the cellar. The company was going to hell in a European handbasket. His entire life was in chaos.

And all he could think about was the color of Laura Michaels’s eyes.

Chapter Two

“Oh, my God. Not again.” The slamming screen door shook the mobile home to its foundation. Wendy Wyatt stomped inside, her furious gaze riveted on the legal documents in Laura’s hand. “What is it this time, another harassment suit claiming you’ve ruined the family name by divorcing that rotten, good-for-nothing son of theirs? A demand for punitive damages because their grandchild once puked on an heirloom quilt? A request to return the antique wedding ring you had to hock to pay the attorney fees for their last round of lawsuits?”

A response would be pointless, since Laura knew her dear friend wouldn’t stop venting long enough to listen, anyway. She simply handed over the document in question, crossed into the cramped kitchen and poured herself a glass of water while Wendy read the newest Summons and Complaint, which had been presented to Laura upon her return from Royce Burton’s extravagant home.

Behind her, paper crinkled. Her roommate issued a stunned gasp. “That’s impossible. How can your ex-laws demand full custody of your son? I mean, that sort of thing just doesn’t happen…does it?”

It took Laura a moment to steady trembling hands and mop up the water she’d spilled on the counter. With a deep breath, a feigned calm, she faced Wendy with what she hoped was a poised and thoughtful expression. “Apparently it does happen, according to that duly recorded hunk of mumbo jumbo.”

Wendy’s face crumpled as if tears were imminent. “How can they do this? I mean, first that lying piece of dog drool they sired humiliates you by humping every female that crosses his line of sight, then when you finally divorce the obnoxious cur, he signs over his assets to his parents and runs off to Europe to avoid paying child support for his own kid. What kind of people are these, anyway?”

“Rich people.” Heaving a sigh, Laura wiped the wet counter, tossed the dishrag over the faucet and swallowed a surge of anger so bitter it nearly choked her. “Money talks. If you have enough of it, ethics don’t matter. You can buy your own morality.”

This was the third lawsuit the Michaelses had filed against Laura since she’d had the audacity to leave their son, a spoiled young man whose once-endearing boyish alacrity soon disintegrated into adolescent immaturity, and whose taste for extravagance was legend despite the pesky fact that he’d never worked a day in his life.

The Michaelses’ first lawsuit had demanded a visitation schedule so onerous it would have required Laura to spend thousands of dollars a year shuttling Jamie hundreds of miles back and forth to his grandparents’ Connecticut home, and would have resulted in the baby spending more time with his grandparents than with his own mother.

When the court awarded only minimal visitation and required the Michaelses to pay transportation costs, their desire to see their grandson dissipated. They’d never made the visitation arrangements and hadn’t seen Jamie since he was an infant. He was now twenty-six months old.

The next lawsuit had demanded punitive damages, maintaining that the divorce had supposedly damaged her ex-husband’s psyche so badly that he’d been forced to leave the country to heal his broken heart, thereby depriving his parents of his companionship. Fortunately, the court pointed out that since the senior Michaelses were financing their son’s European lifestyle, they could avail themselves of his companionship by simply cutting off his living allowance. Laura had thought that would be the end of the legal harassment.

She’d obviously underestimated them. Again.

“Why are they doing this?” Wendy whispered.

Biting her lip, Laura stared into the stack of sticky cereal bowls and used juice glasses. Panic was a mortal enemy, one she’d fought most of her life. This time, it was winning.

“They’ve learned that I lost my job,” she whispered. “The custody petition claims I’m financially unable to care for my son.” The dirty dishes blurred beneath a film of tears. “They might win this one, Wendy. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Jamie. I just don’t know what I’d do….”

“Oh, hon.” Tossing the legal papers on a sofa cluttered with toy cars and comic books, Wendy rushed into the kitchen, wrapped Laura in a fierce hug. “I wish there was something I could do. My supervisor would hire you in a heartbeat if there was an opening.” Wendy, like so many residents of Mill Creek, worked for Burton Technologies. “The only positions available are professional or scientific, requiring university degrees and extensive experience.”

That came as no news to Laura, who’d been pounding the pavement all over town. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something.” Stifling a sniff, Laura forced a brave smile and a cheery tone. “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning with the assistant manager of Quick ’n’ Good Food Mart. They need cashiers for the night shift.”

“Night shift?”

“Yes, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it? Since I’d be home during the day, you wouldn’t have to pay for after-school care for Tim and Danny.”

“Uh-huh.” Wendy narrowed her gaze. “And you plan to sleep…when?”

“Whenever.” Issuing a laugh that sounded only slightly maniacal, Laura returned to washing dishes with an almost desperate vengeance. “The most important thing right now is providing emotional and financial security for my son. One way or the other, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Of course it is.” Wendy retrieved a dripping glass from the dish drainer and spoke as she dried it. “The Michaelses won’t win this, Laura. Your lawyer will have this thing thrown out of court before you can blink twice.”

A tremor shifted from shoulder to spine, tightening Laura’s stomach and nearly buckling her knees. She was thirty-one-years old, and her life was in shambles. “I don’t have a lawyer anymore. He’s suing me, too.”

Wendy stiffened, set the glass aside with cautious deliberation. “What?”

Avoiding her friend’s incredulous stare, Laura turned away, busying herself by piling breakfast dishes in the sink. Only when she felt Wendy’s fingers curl into the flesh of her upper arm did she offer further explanation. “I haven’t been able to make payments on his bill.” She turned on the faucet and blasted a squirt of liquid detergent into an explosion of white foam. “He’s turned me over to a collection agency.”

The pressure on Laura’s arm eased as Wendy released her grip and exhaled all at once, issuing a peculiar hiss that lifted the fine hairs on the back of Laura’s neck. Her skin cooled as her roommate turned away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You have your own problems.” Grabbing a bowl, Laura washed it, rinsed it and set it into the drainer without so much as a second glance. “And I’m one of them.”

“You’re not a problem. You know I love having you here.”

Laura smiled over her shoulder. “You’re such a sweet liar.”

With a sheepish shrug and a twinkle of humor, Wendy dragged a dish towel from the door handle of the refrigerator. “All right, all right, so a friend in need is a damned nuisance—”

“Mom!” The screen door blasted open, and a tow-headed nine-year-old screeched into the small living room, nearly knocking over the rickety knickknack table that held a small television set. “Danny’s hogging the bike! It’s my turn to ride it, and he won’t let me.”

“Work it out,” Wendy muttered. “You know the rules.”

“But it’s my turn!” The boy’s wail of frustration was joined by a cranky cry from the rear of the mobile home.

Exasperated, Wendy jammed her hands on her hips, scowling at her eldest son. “You woke up the baby.”

“That’s all right,” Laura said, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “Nap time is almost over, anyway.” Actually, she’d hoped Jamie would sleep for at least another half hour, but realized such luxury was a futile dream in a chaotically crowded environment where quiet was a precious commodity and privacy was nonexistent.

As she hurried through the small living room to one of the two diminutive bedrooms at the rear of the mobile home, Laura tuned out the sounds of scolding and wailing behind her to focus on the cries of her waking baby.

She slipped into the darkened room from which the two young Wyatt boys had been evicted. Knowing that Wendy’s children had been relegated to the sofa only increased Laura’s guilt at the terrible imposition her presence imposed on her friend.

“There, there,” she crooned, ducking her head to sit on the lower bunk where Jamie sobbed pitifully. The upper bunk was where Laura slept. “Mama’s here, sweet boy.” She gathered the baby in her arms, smoothing his damp hair, kissing his moist little cheek. “Mama will always be here, my precious. Always.”

One way or another, it was a promise she was determined to keep.