Their Baby Girl...?: The Baby Mission / Her Baby Secret

“Never mind that.” She sat down at the edge of her seat, as if poised to leap up at any second, Warrick noticed. Same old C.J. “I need input,” she told them. “Someone brief me.”

George Rodriguez raised and lowered his wide shoulders. At six-five, everything he did was big. “Nothing to brief, C.J., our boy’s laying low again. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be another three-year reprieve.”

That wasn’t the way she saw it. “We’ll get lucky when we nail the son of a bitch.” As long as the serial killer wasn’t off the streets, he could always strike again. “So nothing’s been happening while I’ve been out of touch?” C.J. underscored the final word, sending an accusing glance Warrick’s way.

“Well, Rodriguez, here, got engaged.” Culpepper slapped his partner on the back. Sitting, Rodriguez was almost as tall as Culpepper was standing.

She hadn’t even known he was seeing anyone. “Is that true?” Squirming ever so slightly in his seat, Rodriguez nodded. “Who is she?”

Culpepper answered for him. A new grandfather, he looked upon his partner as a son. He was accustomed to doing most of the talking. “You know that cute little receptionist on the second floor?”

C.J. thought a minute. Her eyes widened as she realized who Culpepper was talking about. “You mean that little-bitty dark-haired one who looks like she wears size-one clothes?”

Culpepper grinned at Rodriguez, who was taking a considerable interest in the file he was holding open in his hands. “That’s the one.”

Talk about the long and the short of it. “What are you going to do, Rodriguez,” C.J. asked, “carry her around in your pocket?”

“For starters,” Culpepper laughed, nudging his partner and winking broadly.

Rodriguez had only been at the Bureau for three and a half years. She still thought of him as “the new guy.” “Well, I’m very happy for you, Rodriguez. Don’t forget to let me know when the wedding is.”

Culpepper sat down and leaned back in his chair. “Hey, talking about weddings, I hear there’s a rash of those going on. Any of you remember Tom Thorndyke, that tall dude who used to work down the hall?” He looked from Warrick to his partner and then at C.J. “You went out with him, didn’t you C.J.?”

Damn it, why did her heart just skip a beat? She thought she’d drummed that bastard out of her system. “Once or twice,” she allowed. She congratulated herself for keeping her smile in place. “What about him?”

Warrick slanted a look at C.J. There was no way he could prevent the conversation from continuing without alerting the other two men that something was wrong. No one else knew that the absent special agent was the father of C.J.’s baby.

Culpepper’s chair creaked. “Word is he’s getting married.”

“Married?” The word tasted like dried cardboard in her mouth. She struggled to sound only mildly interested. Anger mingled with surprise. “Really? To who?”

Culpepper scrubbed his hand over his face, thinking. He prided himself on always getting his facts right. “Somebody he met while on the job. One of the bean counters.” Every organization had them. Even the Bureau. “She moved out with him when he transferred. Got the story from the guy who used to be his partner.” He glanced at C.J. “All these weddings, must be something in the water, eh, C.J.?”

“Must be.”

She knew that Culpepper wasn’t trying to be insensitive. The oldest of them by twenty years, it was probably his fatherly way of suggesting that she herself find someone to marry, to give her baby a proper father. He had no way of knowing that he’d struck a bad chord.

Picking up her purse, she pretended to look through it. “I think I left something back in the car.” Dropping the purse, she rose to her feet, keys in hand. “I’ll be right back.”

“Pictures of the baby, I’ll bet,” Culpepper chuckled. He looked at Rodriguez. “They’ve always got pictures.”

Warrick hurried after C.J. She’d managed to get far ahead of him in the hall. He lengthened his stride.

“Hey, Jones, wait up. Didn’t the doctor tell you not to start jogging the same day you went back to work?” Catching up to her, he took hold of her arm, bringing her to a halt. “C’mon, C.J., stop for a minute and talk to me.”

She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She wanted to kick something, break something. Vent. But because Warrick had placed himself in the line of fire, she took it out on him.

“Did you know?” she demanded.

He didn’t know if she was hurt or about to spit fire. With C.J. it was hard to tell. “I—”

Her eyes narrowed accusingly. “Did you know?”

He made it a point not to lie. Especially not to a friend. The closest he came was to omit mentioning things. But there was no space for that here.

Warrick threw his hands up. “Hell, C.J. what do you want me to tell you? Yes, I knew. I heard via the grapevine last week just like blabbermouth in there.” He silently cursed Culpepper. Why couldn’t the man have been out of the office when she came back?

“And you didn’t tell me.” How could he? she demanded silently. How could he have known and not told her?

“Why should I?” He hadn’t told her because he didn’t want to reopen any wounds that might have been healing. “You said you moved on, remember? You told me in the hospital that you didn’t want to get in contact with him—ever.”

“I didn’t. I don’t.” Confusion was running riot through her. She honestly thought she was over the man. But if so, why this sudden onslaught of pain? What the hell was wrong with her? “It’s just that…” Anger creased her brow as she looked up at him. “Damn it, War, here I thought he didn’t want to get involved and it was that he just didn’t want to get involved with me.” And being rejected stung. “I guess it just hurts my pride, that’s all.”

He bracketed her shoulders with his hands. Wanting to protect her. Knowing she’d bite off his head if he even hinted at it. “Just goes to prove how stupid the guy really was, letting someone like you go. Look, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you reacting this way. He’s not worth it, C.J. You know it, I know it. End of story.”

“Yeah, end of story,” she echoed, then thought of her daughter and how hard it had been to leave her this morning. She’d never known she could fall in love so completely and with such little effort. But she had. And if not for Thorndyke, Joy wouldn’t have existed. And all that love C.J. felt within her at this moment wouldn’t have even materialized. “I guess I got the best part of him anyway.”

He’d been out in the field for the last week and hadn’t had time to drop by to visit C.J. “Speaking of which, how’s my future goddaughter doing?”

C.J. thought of the way she felt walking to her car after dropping the infant off. Empty, as if a part of her was suddenly missing.

“A lot better than me. I left her the center of attention at my mother’s house.” She’d never realized just how much her mother had wanted to be a grandmother. “My parents have more baby furniture and toys for Joy than I do.” This despite the impromptu shower the Mom Squad had thrown her when she’d come home from the hospital.

He saw nothing surprising about that. “Why not? They had five kids—and an attic.” He crossed his arms before his chest. “So I take it she didn’t have any—what do they call it?—separation anxiety?”

C.J. laughed shortly. “She didn’t. I did.” Even now she couldn’t help wondering what her baby was doing. Did she realize C.J. wasn’t around? Or was Mommy just another face to look up at? God, but she was getting mushy. How long before hormones adjusted themselves back into place? And then she looked at Warrick in wonder. “How do you know about separation anxiety, anyway?”

He was the methodical one. “I thought that since I’m supposed to be her godfather, I should bone up on these things.” He looked at his partner pointedly. “I should also insist that she have a middle name to go with the first name. You can’t just call her Joy Jones.”

She saw nothing wrong with that. “Why not?”

“Do you want people to call her ‘J.J.’?

“I don’t just want her to have any old middle name. I want the whole name to be special. To fit her.”

Time was running out, Warrick thought. The christening was set for next week. “Okay, what d’you say I come over tonight after work with a book of baby names, and we’ll start tossing out names at her? One of them is bound to stick.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He cocked his head and peered at her, the teasing note gone from his voice. “You going to be okay?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder, raising her chin. He was familiar with that move. It was her “the world can go to hell” gesture. “I’m already okay. Just took the wind out of my sails, that’s all. Worse things could have happened, right?”

“Right. You could be marrying the guy.” They began to walk back down the hall when he stopped her again. “Hey, have you got any pictures of the baby with you?”

She thought that was an odd question, coming from him. “In my purse. Brian’s been snapping his camera so much around her, she’s probably debating getting a career as a model right now. Why?”

“Because Culpepper’s expecting you to come back with pictures.” He didn’t want the other man quizzing her and having his suspicions raised. Culpepper might come off as a busybody, but there was nothing wrong with his deductive reasoning. “He thinks that’s what you went to get from your car.”

“I’ll just tell him I made a mistake.” But as they started to walk again, she placed a hand on his arm. She had to ask. “War, does anyone else know? About Thorndyke and me?”

Warrick shook his head. “Not unless Thorndyke told them, and considering how fast he put in for a transfer to another field office after you told him, I really don’t think he did.”

“Good.” Despite the fact that she was outgoing, C.J. hated having her business plastered all over the office.

She supposed that gave her something in common with Warrick.

“It was good to go back to work, but it’s even better to come back to you,” C.J. told her baby as she let herself into her house. “I forgot how long days could feel.”

Still holding Joy in her infant seat, C.J. kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes. The rug felt good beneath her feet.

Despite her mother’s protests and her offer to make dinner, C.J. had opted to come home to snare a little peace and quiet, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. The day had been deadly dull and overly long, at least it seemed that way. Their investigation was going nowhere—slowly. At times it felt as if every minute was being individually held hostage, doubling in size before it was released.

She supposed that missing her daughter had something to do with that. At twenty-eight, she was surprised to find out something new about herself.

C.J. rotated her neck, trying to ease away some of the tension. She looked down into the car seat. Joy’s eyes were shut, long black lashes creating dark crescents along her cheeks.

“Oh, honey, are you asleep already? I thought I’d get in a little quality time with you.” She banked down her disappointment. “I guess not.” She smiled to herself. “With my luck, you’ll probably want quality time at two in the morning.”

Carrying the infant seat over to a safe, flat surface, C.J. placed it on the dining room table. Careful not to wake the baby, she unbuckled the restraining straps one at a time.

“Well, don’t get used to being a dictator. Once you figure this language of ours out and can understand me, there are going to be lines to toe, young lady, and hoops to jump through.” She laughed, nuzzling her daughter as she picked her up out of the infant seat. “Yeah, and I’ll probably be the one doing the toeing and the leaping. Just don’t tell anyone your mom’s a softie, okay? It’ll be our little secret.”

Holding her daughter in the crook of her arm, C.J. looked down at the perfect little face. “Slept right through that, didn’t you? Next you’ll be telling me I’m boring.” She thought of the news about Thorndyke and his wedding. “Maybe I am at that. Okay, enough pity. Let’s get you into bed, my love.”

The baby made no protest.

After making sure the baby monitor, with its multiple receiving units that she’d placed in each room, was turned on, C.J. gently closed the nursery door.

The doorbell rang.

She sighed. Now what?

Training had her glancing at her holstered gun on the hall table before approaching the front door. The weapon was in easy reach, just in case. “Who is it?” she called out.

“Rumpelstiltskin. Who do you think? Open the door, C.J.”

Warrick. Their conversation in the hallway came back to her. She’d completely forgotten.

About to appeal to his better nature and beg off, C.J. opened the door. She didn’t get the opportunity to say the words. Warrick walked in, juggling a large pizza box in one hand and a couple of books in the other. He held the latter aloft.

“I come bearing pizza and not one baby name book, but two.” He tossed the books on the sofa as he came into the living room. “I couldn’t decide between the two and thought I’d splurge. I figured, Murphy’s Law, the one I didn’t buy would have the name that appealed to you.” The coffee table was littered with papers. She was the only one he knew who was a worse housekeeper than he was. “Where do you want this?” He indicated the pizza. “It’s hot.”

Walking ahead of him, she moved the infant seat off the table and put it on the floor in the corner. “You didn’t have to bring that.”

He was already opening the box. The smell of pepperoni and three kinds of cheeses filled the air. “Hey, I’ve got to eat, too.”

C.J. went to the kitchen and reached into the cupboard for a couple of plates. “I could always have rustled up something.”

He shivered at the thought. “No offense but I’d rather eat my shoes.” He took a plate from her. “You’re a woman of many talents, C.J. Cooking is not one of them.” He held up the first slice, offering it to her. “My dog cooks better than you.”

She slid the slice onto her plate and sat down at the table. “You don’t have a dog.”

He took a slice for himself. “If I did, he’d cook better than you.” He sank his teeth into the slice and savored the taste. It had taken him almost four years to find the right pizza place. It wasn’t just about tossing the right ingredients onto dough, it was about care and timing and crust. Though his body gave no indication of it, Warrick loved his food. “And I’m thinking about getting one.”

She stopped midbite. “You?”

He could just hear her mocking him. “Is that so hard to imagine?”

“Yes. I can’t see you getting attached to anything.” His marriage and its disastrous termination testified to that.

“Who says I’m the one getting attached? Dogs are supposed to be the loyal ones, the ones that stand by the door, waiting for you to come home.” He had to admit, he kind of liked the thought of having something there to greet him. Though he enjoyed his solitude, there were times when there was too much of it.

“Good luck with that.” She took another bite, then looked at him. “And since when do you care about those kinds of things, anyway?”

He wasn’t about to admit to having a real need. “Seems like the right thing to do. Then my goddaughter would have something to play with whenever she came over to visit.”

“My daughter’s coming over to your house? When did this happen?”

“Well, not right now.” Polishing off the slice, he helped himself to another. “I mean later. When she can walk and talk and stuff. I haven’t even got the dog yet,” he pointed out.

C.J. laughed and shook her head. Getting up, she went to get a couple of napkins.

“If you ask me, I came back from maternity leave just in time.” She tossed several napkins on the table between them. “You sound like you’re losing your mind.”

He had to admit he’d missed having her around. “Rodriguez and Culpepper aren’t exactly next week’s contestants for Jeopardy.” At least not as far as day-to-day conversations went. “All Culpepper wants to talk about is that gopher he’s been battling since the beginning of time, and Rodriguez keeps getting that goofy look on his face whenever he thinks about his fiancée.”

“How can you tell the difference? He always looks goofy.”

Warrick laughed. “Goofier.” He realized he needed something to drink. “I didn’t bring beer, I didn’t know if you were, um, you know.”

“No, I’m not, um, you know.” Getting up, she went to the refrigerator and fetched a bottle of beer for him and a can of diet soda for herself. “The baby’s pediatrician said she needs a special formula. Seems that she’s allergic—”

Warrick held up his hand. “Too much information.” He felt this was getting into a realm he had no business being in. “That’s violating doctor-patient privilege.”

“How much privilege are we talking about?” C.J. laughed, then looked at her partner. Was that a pink hue she saw creeping up his cheek? Warrick? This was a man who’d busted a prostitution ring and walked in on two naked women without blinking an eye. “Pink is not your color, Warrick.”

He pushed the box toward her. “Why don’t you just finish eating so we can get down to business?”

She helped herself to a second slice. “Okay, but I warn you,” her eyes indicated the books, “this might not work.”

“Every known name in the world is in these books. If you can’t find a middle name here, you’re going to have to make one up.”

She hadn’t thought of that. The idea was not without its appeal. “There’s an idea.”

Warrick was sorry he’d said anything. “Let’s just leave it on the back burner until we’ve gone through this.”

“Whatever you say.”

He gave her a dubious look. “Now there’s something I never thought I’d hear from you.”

The sound of her laughter enveloped him. He’d missed that, too, Warrick thought as he got up to get the books.

Chapter 6

Warrick shook his head as he got up from the living room sofa. It was getting late and they had more than done justice to the pizza, if not to the quest for a suitable middle name for C.J.’s daughter.

The latter was not for his lack of trying. He glanced at the books on the coffee table. They looked as if they’d been run through the wringer. “You know, you’re impossible.”

C.J. rose, as well. She stretched before rounding the table to join him.

“No,” she said, “I’m selective.”

She wasn’t any happier about the situation than he sounded, but she was determined not to rush this process. Her daughter’s full name had to be absolutely right for her.

Warrick had another word for it, but kept it to himself.

“It’s just a middle name. Just pick one.” She glanced back at the books. “I don’t know, maybe I went through them too fast, but none of the names I looked at ‘feel’ right for my daughter.” She frowned.

Why did he even bother trying to win an argument with her? “You know, rather than Christmas, your parents should have named you Mary. Like in that nursery rhyme—‘Mary, Mary quite contrary.”’ He took a closer look at her. There were shadows beneath her eyes. He hoped her daughter would let her get a few hours rest. “Do you have to disagree with everything I say?”

“I don’t have to…” C.J. let her voice trail off. The further it went, the wider her grin became.

Warrick surrendered with a symbolic throwing up of his hands. He had to be getting home. There were a few things he wanted to check into before he went to bed. “You win. I give up.”

C.J. picked up the two books he’d brought and held them out to him, but he shook his head.

“You keep these and see if a name does ‘feel right’ to you.” He moved his hands around like a wizard conjuring up a spell.

C.J. put the books back down. “You’ll be the first to know,” she promised. She walked him to the door and opened it, then lingered a moment in the doorway. “Thanks for the pizza and the books.”

He pointed toward them behind her, a headmaster giving a pupil an assignment. “You’ve a week, Jones.”

She sighed. That did limit her time, she thought. “I know, I know.”

“Hey,” he leaned his arm on the doorjamb just above her head, “different strokes for different folks. It’s what makes the world go around.” He moved back a hair that was in her face. Her pupils looked as if they widened just a touch. He felt that same funny stirring in his gut. Again he locked it away. “You’re entitled to be a little strange once in a while.”

Warrick wasn’t sure just what made him do what he did next. He supposed it was a natural by-product of a good evening spent in the company of a good friend, although he’d never brushed a kiss on the cheek of any of the guys he’d interacted with on the basketball court, no matter how good a game had been played.

Whatever the reason behind it, the bottom line was that he leaned over and touched his lips to her cheek, as he’d done in the hospital.

This time it didn’t stun her. It didn’t even register because just then a cat unleashed a wild screech that sounded as if it was being vivisected somewhere in the vicinity. The unearthly noise startled her, and she jerked, turning her head, just as before.

But this time when their lips met, neither one of them sprang back. Instead they drew together. And allowed the unintentional meeting of two pairs of lips to instantly flower into something a great deal more lethal, a great deal hotter than simply skin against skin.

And a great deal more pleasurable.

He didn’t remember doing it. Didn’t remember taking hold of C.J.’s shoulders and drawing her up a little higher, a little closer, helping her along as she rose on her toes. Didn’t remember deepening the kiss, even though he did.

What he did remember was thinking that now he finally knew what it felt like to be kicked by a mule. Because something sure had found him where he lived and given him a swift, sound kick right to his gut.

Damn, for someone with just a tart tongue, she tasted sweet.

This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be happening, she thought. But she was so glad it was.

For one long, everlasting moment, C.J. felt as if her connections to the real world had all been short-circuited and severed. There was no sky above, no ground below, no walls around to contain her. She was free-falling into an abyss, a wild swirling surging in her chest.

Warrick?

This was Warrick?

How the hell could this be Warrick? She’d worked alongside him for more than six years. Possibly, once or twice in an off moment, she’d fantasized what it might be like to be with him in some capacity other than his partner, but nothing that had momentarily traveled through her brain had been remotely close to this.

This was something she didn’t know how to begin to describe.

Was that her pulse vibrating so fast? Could he tell? What the hell was happening to her? She was melting all over him.

Limp, she felt limp.

No! No way this was happening to her, not here, not now. Not again.

The next moment, contact was broken. Whether she pushed him back or he’d done it of his own accord, she didn’t know. But the sky, the ground and the walls all made a return appearance.

It took all she had to remain standing where she was and not grasp the doorjamb for support.

Very slowly Warrick let out his breath. What he really wanted to do was gulp air in to replenish the lack of it in his lungs and maybe, just maybe, squelch this erratic hammering of his heart.

He looked at her, striving for the nonchalance that was one of the cornerstones of their partnership, hoping his voice didn’t give him away. “You’ve got to learn to stop turning your head at the wrong moment.”

She looked at him in surprise. Wrong moment? Did it feel like a wrong moment to him? It felt like a right one to her.

Careful, C.J. you’re vulnerable. This is what got you in trouble before. Think, don’t feel.

She clenched her hands at her sides, pressing her nails into the palms of her hand.