Valentine's Day

“Name?”

“The babysitter says his name is Jamie.”

“Babysitter?” For the first time since he’d come in the room, he raised his gaze from his study of the baby. “There’s a babysitter?”

Tito nodded. “I told her to wait in the bedroom.”

Max nodded back, then his eyes narrowed. “Where’s Sheila?” he asked, naming his brother’s girlfriend.

He’d only met her once. She was pretty, of course, and nice enough in her way, but her way tended to be a ditzy combination of brainless chatter and limitless desire for luxurious things. She and Gino were no longer an item when he was killed in the crash of a small plane. No one seemed to know what had happened to her. It was only months later that she began calling, claiming she’d had Gino’s child, demanding money.

Tito’s shrug was all encompassing. “The babysitter doesn’t know. She says she was hired three days ago, and Sheila was supposed to be back in twenty-four hours. She has no contact number and Sheila hasn’t called.”

“Have you searched the place for phone numbers or addresses?”

“Of course. I haven’t found anything relevant.”

“Damn. Well, we can’t just wait here.”

“The babysitter said she was getting pretty scared herself. She was about on the point of calling the police when I got here.”

“But she didn’t?”

“No. At least, that’s what she claims.”

“Good.” Max nodded again. “We’ll get a local lawyer to handle this before we speak to the authorities.”

Tito looked at him intently. “So you plan to take the baby?”

“Of course.”

Tito nodded, but as if on cue, the baby began to fuss.

Max stared down at it. So did Tito. The fussing got more serious.

“It’s crying,” Tito said at last.

“Yes. So it seems.” Max backed away a bit. Crying babies were not within his sphere of experience and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know more.

Tito tried wiggling his fingers in front of the baby’s face, but he only cried louder.

“It won’t stop,” he noted, beginning to look worried.

Max frowned, uneasy as well. “No.” He looked at his assistant. “Was it crying before?”

Tito shook his head. “It’s been asleep, I think. I know it wasn’t making this kind of noise.”

“It is now.” Max winced as the decibel level increased.

“Well, what do you do when they cry?” Tito asked his boss, seemingly at a loss.

Max’s frown grew fiercer. “How the hell should I know?”

The two men looked at each other, then back down at the baby. The mood was grim.

By now, Cari had managed to cross the room and was right behind them. She could just barely see the baby. He was crying as though his heart would break, holding nothing back. Her fear, her panic, was gone now. Her heart thumped in her chest, but she had things under a fair modicum of control. Taking a deep breath, she pushed her way between the men.

“Don’t knock yourselves out looking for the off switch,” she advised tartly. “They don’t have one.”

Max stepped back, seeming relieved as she reached the crib and curled her fingers around the bar. Steeling herself, she looked down, bracing for the sight. A mass of dark hair, fat cheeks red with crying, eyes squinted shut, two little fists waving in the air—this child looked nothing like hers. Relief flooded her and she closed her eyes for two seconds, then glanced down again and spoke to him.

“Hey little fellow,” she crooned. “What’s all this about? Don’t you worry. You’re going to be okay.”

The sound of a feminine voice stopped the last cry in his throat and he opened his dark brown eyes and looked up at her. A remnant sob shook him, but he stared at her curiously as though she were something brand-new and possibly very interesting.

She smiled. He was adorable. Reaching down, she gathered him up and took him into her arms. And then she closed her eyes and let the feeling wash over her. She had a baby close against her. That special sort of enchantment had been her daily experience for such a short time before it was taken from her. And now, for the first time in two years, she could feel it again. Tears welled in her eyes.

“You can handle this, then?” the man who’d brought her here was saying.

She nodded without looking at him. She didn’t want him to see that her eyes were wet.

Max stared at her. He wasn’t always as sensitive as he should be to women’s feelings, but he could tell something was going on here. He just wasn’t quite sure what it was, and Tito beckoned from the door to the bedroom. He hesitated only a moment before he decided she was okay, and he turned and went into the side room to question the babysitter.

Cari held the baby gently and cooed, rocking the tiny body, until all whimpering quieted. The little eyes closed, long, dark lashes fluttering against rounded cheeks, and then he was still. She kissed his head and hummed softly. It seemed so natural. Her own baby had trained her well, though she didn’t want to think about that. Blocking out the past was a part of accepting the present for her right now. She’d done a lot of time in her own personal agony and she couldn’t live that way forever. But she’d spent much too long trying to avoid all contact with babies, hoping to avoid the pain memories brought with them. Now that she’d been thrust into this situation and forced to deal with it, she found she was in a special sort of heaven and she didn’t even look up when the men came back into the room. She was floating on feelings and ignoring everything else.

When she heard the woman’s voice she looked up in surprise, but hardly paid attention as the older lady left the room, Tito leaving close behind her. Vaguely, she was aware that this had been the babysitter and that Tito was driving the woman home, but it seemed to have nothing much to do with her enjoyment of this wonderful baby.

Max watched her for a moment, surprised to see how quickly she’d adapted to a style of nurturing he didn’t remotely understand.

“So, what do you think of him?” he asked.

“He’s a duck,” she murmured, smiling wistfully as she hugged him close and rocked him. “A sweet little baby duck. I don’t ever want to put him down.”

He nodded. “He looks pretty good to me, too. As long as he’s not crying.”

She flashed a startled look at the tall man beside her. She’d had dealings with a man who was irrationally bothered by a baby crying. It wasn’t a good thing. But she calmed down immediately. After all, what he’d said was probably a common complaint.

“Who is he?” she asked, stroking the hair on his little head. “What’s the connection?”

He hesitated, then decided he might as well tell the truth. “He’s my brother’s child,” he said. “At least, that’s the assumption. We’ll find out after DNA testing is done.”

She drew back. Something didn’t sit well with her. All the sense of well-being brought on by holding this baby seemed to melt away quickly.

“He’s your brother’s baby and you’ve never seen him before?” She frowned, searching his face for clues.

He shrugged. “I’ve been in Italy,” he said, as though that explained everything.

She made a face. “Where’s your brother? Or the baby’s mother, for that matter?”

“Good question.” He decided to ignore the part about his brother. “We don’t know. She seems to have disappeared. The babysitter said she should have been back days ago.”

She nodded, taking that in. “So I guess you’re going to call the police?”

Without missing a beat, he said firmly, “No. Not yet.”

“But…”

He moved impatiently. “Listen C.J., this is really none of your affair. I’ve been involved in the search for this baby for weeks now. We’ve finally found him and we’ll do what we think necessary.”

She shook her head, exasperated. “Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked. “My name is Cari. It’s a fine name and it doesn’t need shortening to C.J.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “A little formal, isn’t it? You actually want me to call you Miss Kerry all the time?”

“No.” He was such an annoying man. “Drop the ‘miss’. I’m not a Southern belle.”

He looked puzzled. “Let me get this straight. You want to be called by your last name?”

“Cari isn’t my last name,” she interjected quickly. “I don’t know where you got that idea. It’s my given name. Just plain Cari. And there’s no J involved at all.”

He shook his head, bewildered by that. “Your name is Celinia Jade Kerry, right?”

“No.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the silly name he was trying to pin on her. “My name is Cari Christensen. That’s been my name for quite some time now. In fact, it’s official, and I’ve got proof. Want to see my driver’s license?”

He stared into her clear blue eyes for a long moment. She certainly looked like a woman telling the absolute truth. The light began to dawn. Something had been a little off about this entire operation from the start. She hadn’t fit the profile he was expecting. He should have trusted his instincts. And now—what the hell had he done? This was the wrong woman.

“Uh-oh,” he said at last.

CHAPTER THREE

CARI sighed, impatience building ever higher as she hugged the baby to her chest. This date had been strange from the start, but it was getting stranger.

First this man had turned out to be so incredibly different from what she’d expected. Then there was the Italian element—not to mention the accent. The mother on the phone. Abandoned babies in dirty apartments. An assistant named Tito. If she hadn’t known better, she might think she’d landed in the middle of a scene from a bad B movie and was caught up in some really crazy dialogue. Mara had not forewarned her of all of this.

“Listen, Randy,” she began, eyes flashing as she prepared to read him the riot act.

His own eyes widened and his head went back. “Who the hell is Randy?” he demanded.

Shock jolted through her. This man wasn’t Randy? This man wasn’t the one she’d been waiting for, the one her friend had set her up with? This wasn’t her blind date?

But of course he wasn’t. Hadn’t she suspected that all along? The scales fell from her eyes—so to speak. This wasn’t Mara’s husband’s cousin after all. And that just about explained everything.

“Aren’t you Randy Jeffington?” she asked, though by now she knew darn well he wasn’t.

He shook his head, looking like a man who expected all things in his path to snap into place and had been sorely disappointed once again—a man who was planning to make sure someone paid for this.

“Never heard of him,” he growled at her.

“Uh-oh,” she echoed softly, swaying and feeling just a bit unsteady on her feet.

Suddenly she had a clear and shining picture of a tall, sandy-haired man in glasses carrying a red rose. She’d seen him just as they were leaving the club and she now had an epiphany. That, no doubt, was Randy. Poor guy.

But something in the back of her mind had known all along, hadn’t it? This handsome figure standing before her was just too good to be true. Or too bad, as the case might be.

And poor Randy Jeffington. Was he still wandering around the Longhorn Lounge looking for her? Her hand went to her mouth, her eyes huge.

“Omigosh. We’ve got to go back.”

He nodded grimly. “You’ve got that right. We’ve got the wrong dates.”

“There must be a woman named… whatever that weird name you said was… waiting for you back there.”

“Holding a red rose.”

“Oh, no.” She grimaced tragically. “Too bad we all picked the same color, isn’t it?”

He was still glowering at her. “Too bad we didn’t get identities straight from the beginning,” he said curtly.

She frowned, shifting the baby from one hip to the other and trying to remember how it had happened. “You called me Miss Cari. My name is Cari, with a C. I thought—”

“I called you Miss Kerry with a K.”

“Oh. Well, it was hard to know that at the time.”

“It was perfectly straightforward. You should have guessed.”

“I should have guessed? What about you? You acted like you were sure I was the one. I sort of just… followed along—like a dummy.” She frowned, remembering how she’d almost been in a trance. She could hardly believe that a man like this was the Randy she was waiting for. And it turned out she was right. She sighed plaintively.

“Oh, well. What’s done is done. Now we have to do our best to undo it.”

“Exactly.” He glanced down at the sleeping baby in her arms, then around the simple room. “Let’s get out of here.”

She looked down at the baby. “Are we taking him with us?”

“Well, we’re not going to leave him here.”

“No, I suppose not.” She bit her lip. This didn’t seem right, but she didn’t know what else they could do.

From the crib, she picked up a blanket and wrapped it around the baby while he picked up the diaper bag. Looking up, she sighed as her gaze traveled over the handsome man who’d brought her here. He was like a mythic figure, so tall and strong with matinee-idol looks. When something seemed too good to be true, you had to know it was likely to be so. Oh well, this had been interesting.

“So what is your name, anyway?” she asked as they looked around the apartment to make sure they weren’t forgetting anything.

“Max,” he said grimly. “Max Angeli.”

“And I’m Cari Christensen.”

He looked down at her and almost had to smile. She seemed to be able to maintain a sunny personality despite all odds against it. In contrast to what he was feeling himself, which was dour indeed. “You said that.”

“I thought you might not have caught it in the heat of the moment.”

He nodded, mouth twisting. “I wish you’d mentioned it while we were still at the club,” he said. “There you were waving at me with that damn red rose.”

“Oh!” She stopped and glared at him. “You’re not going to blame this whole catastrophe on me.”

He liked the fire in her eyes. She wasn’t his type and he would never have picked her out of a crowd, but there was something appealing about her just the same. He liked the liveliness of her reactions and he couldn’t resist teasing her a bit.

“Why not?” he said with a careless shrug. “If you’d been on your toes, this wouldn’t have happened. You made me stand up the woman I was supposed to be with. You may have killed that relationship.”

“And you messed up my date with Randy,” she reminded him, though she was beginning to realize he wasn’t really serious.

“Wasn’t it a blind date?” he asked her as they headed out of the apartment. He turned back to make sure the door was locked. “And you know what they say about love.”

“I know they say love is blind, but I think you have to give it a chance to grow before you can kill it.”

“Murderess,” he muttered, choking back a smile.

She sighed, glancing at him sideways. “You’re not exactly the Lone Ranger, my friend,” she chided, teasing him back now. “For all you know, you may have destroyed a great love affair.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You and Randy?”

“Sure. Why not?” She made a face at him. “Romeo and Juliet. Anthony and Cleopatra. Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.” She struck a pose. “The names Cari and Randy might have belonged right up there with them all.”

“All doomed to tragedy,” he noted helpfully. “If a great passion is meant to be it’ll take more than a missed connection to destroy it.”

“Perhaps.” She flashed him a smile. “And yours, too.”

His laugh was short and humorless. “C.J. and I aren’t meant for love,” he said cynically. “But we are destined to make beautiful music together.”

She looked at him with bewilderment. “How can you know that when you don’t even know who she is?”

He knew enough about C.J. to know she was meant—unfortunately—to be very important in his life. He might not know what she looked like, but he had her number, just the same. His smile was bittersweet as he shrugged, pushing open the outer door to the building for her.

“Destiny is relentless.”

“Destiny. Such a strong word.”

But all that was forgotten as she looked at what they were heading into.

“It’s starting to rain,” she said with dismay, just as they stepped outside and the door clicked shut behind them.

“Yes,” Max said, wondering what else could go wrong. Just another layer of bad luck he supposed. But this was getting monotonous.

“Where’s the car?” she asked.

“The car?”

He looked where he’d parked it. The space was empty. His first thought was—did Tito take it? But no. He glanced at the driveway. Tito’s rental car was gone. He looked back at the place where he’d left his newly minted beauty. Sure enough, it was gone, too. His heart sank. And now he knew what else could go wrong.

He swore coldly and obscenely, and she pulled the baby closer, frowning at him, even though the words were in Italian. Reaching into his pocket, he realized he’d left his mobile in the car, which had now been stolen. He swore again.

“Where’s your phone?” he asked curtly.

She shook her head. “I forgot to bring it,” she said.

He stared at her, unable to believe this string of bad luck wasn’t over yet.

“My car’s been stolen. You have no phone. I have no phone. We just locked ourselves out of the building and it’s starting to rain.”

She sighed, shoulders sagging. That was quite a litany of woes. “We’re also stuck in the middle of a rather bad neighborhood,” she reminded him, looking around at the menacing shadows.

“Not for long.” He picked up the diaper bag and glanced down the street. The lights from downtown were visible in the sky. It was quite evident which way they needed to travel. “We’re going to have to walk, at least until we can flag down a cab. Let’s go. The sooner we start out, the sooner we’ll get there.”

Cari looked down at her three-inch heels. “Okay,” she said sadly, trying to smile.

He looked down at them, too. “Those shoes aren’t made for walking,” he noted dryly.

That was certainly a fact, but her feet sure were cute in them, and what that angle did to her beautiful legs was beyond mentioning. He swallowed hard as the thought came and nestled into his senses. Raising his gaze to her clear blue eyes, he got another jolt of erotic sensation and he shook his head, trying to stave it off. This was no time to let his libido go wild.

“I could carry you,” he said gruffly, still holding her gaze with his own. “But with the baby and all…”

“You will not!” she retorted, taking a step away from him. “I can walk. Believe me, I’ve done it for years.” She started off down the street, just to prove it. “I’ll carry the baby. You get the diaper bag. It’s heavier.”

They set off into the dark neighborhood, trying to ignore the drizzle. Most of the buildings seemed to be industrial and there was no sign of life coming from any that lined the street they were hurrying down. It was downright spooky.

Max pushed all thought about his beautiful Ferrari out of his mind. There was no point in mourning over a car when he had so many other things to worry about. An occasional driver went by, driving too fast to be flagged down, and there were no people out on the street—at least, none that made their presence known. But there was an eerie feeling, a sort of vague menace. This was not the sort of neighborhood either one of them would have wandered into voluntarily. Bad things tended to happen at night in areas like this.

Cari was feeling the creepiness as well, and instinctively she held the baby closer. Looking down, she felt a quick surge of tenderness for the child. Babies should be protected from harm and that was what adults where there for. But just as she had that thought, a flash of pain sliced through her. If only she’d been able to protect her own baby from harm. If only Brian had been more careful. If only…

No. She shook the regrets away. She’d been down that road so many times. Right after the accident that took her husband and her baby, she’d spent months almost drowning in recriminations, all the old “if only” cries of the heart. It had taken time and a bit of counseling to help her pull out of that downward spiral and she never wanted to take a plunge like that again. You could either immerse yourself in the past and die bit by bit, or reach out to the future and make a new life. Slowly, painfully, she was trying to do the latter.

But for now the past was useful in the training she’d had with her own baby. She seemed to bond naturally with this one, and that felt better than she had any right to expect.

So she looked over her shoulder, wishing they were in a better neighborhood.

“Do you have a weapon with you?” she asked Max, not really expecting him to answer in the affirmative, just expressing trepidation.

“Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my Glock,” he quipped, but she noticed he took a quick look over his shoulder as well. “If only I’d known I’d need it.”

“There you go,” she said lightly. “I guess you were never a Boy Scout.”

He gave her a long sideways look. “What would that have done for me?”

She shrugged her free shoulder and pulled the baby more closely to the other one. “You’d have known about their motto. Be Prepared.”

“Oh, I’m prepared.”

“Still, you’re not a real Texan, are you?” She sighed, pretending it was such a pity.

That was meant to get his goat and it did the job.

“I’m Italian,” he said with quick native pride. “That’s just as good, you know.” He grunted. “On second thought, it’s better.”

“Is it?” She gave him a mockingly taunting look. “From what I hear, Italians are pretty emotional, compared to Texans. They talk real fast, yell a lot, say outlandish things.”

“Sort of like Texans?” He got the joke, but he grinned and played along. “Why not? We enjoy life more than most people do. What’s more, we’re warm, loyal and generous to a fault.” His voice dropped in a husky way that was meant to make her senses quiver. “And we’re the most passionate lovers on earth.”

She was glad the darkness hid how hot her cheeks suddenly became. The surge of warmth surprised her. She’d fallen for this guy’s good looks and masculinity from the first, but in a reserved way, the way she dealt with most of life. She usually didn’t let emotions—or even attractions—down into her inner core. Her heart was protected by a thick wall of experience, not much of it good. Had she actually allowed this handsome Italian to get to her? She couldn’t let that happen.

“Well, good for you,” she said as lightly as she could manage. “I guess Miss C. J. Kerry will be glad to hear it.”

He frowned, not pleased to be reminded of the mess this evening had turned into. He wasn’t happy that he’d done anything to put Celinia Jade Kerry in a hostile mood. He needed her happy and compliant. The woman might be short on cash, but to a female, a sense of having been overlooked and ignored for another could blot all that out. He was going to have to be very tactful with the lady—tactful and apologetic.

Still, the night wasn’t a total loss at all. They had found Gino’s baby. Just an hour before, he hadn’t been sure there really was a baby. And now Jamie was in Cari’s arms and on his way to a complete medical checkup and a DNA test.

The fact that baby Jamie’s mother was missing disturbed him, and yet it made things easier in the short run. Eventually, he had no doubt they would find her. For just a moment he imagined what it would be like for his mother when he returned to Venice with Gino’s baby in tow—and hopefully, the deed to her family ranch in hand. Maybe that would erase some of the sadness from her eyes and bring back just a touch of joy to her life. That had been his goal from the start of this adventure. His mother’s happiness meant a lot to him.

Lost in thought, he didn’t notice the small group of nasty neighborhood thugs until they stepped out in front of them, blocking their way. The effect on his danger radar was immediate, though. He stopped Cari and the baby with an outstretched arm, putting his body between her and the three gang-bangers.