Книга - Excuse Me? Whose Baby?: Excuse Me? Whose Baby? / Follow That Baby!

Excuse Me? Whose Baby?: Excuse Me? Whose Baby? / Follow That Baby!
Jacqueline Diamond

Isabel Sharpe


Excuse Me? Whose Baby? Jacqueline DiamondDoes the stork have the right address?Millionaire bachelor Jim Bonderoff is the envy of men and the fantasy of every woman. It isn't until he learns he's a dad that he realizes something has been missing from his life. But it's not this new spiky-haired addition that's the biggest surprise…it's the mom! Alexandra Fenton knows she isn't ready for burping babies, changing diapers or midnight feedings. She doesn't think Jim is, either. The big question now? Whose baby is it?Follow That Baby! Isabel SharpeHide and seek, grown-up style…Small-town, determinedly single schoolteacher Melanie Brooks and big-city, burned-out private detective Joe Jantzen have one thing in common–someone else's baby! She's trying to hide the little tyke and he's trying to find him. Joe has to hand it to Melanie–she's good, very good. She almost has him convinced "her" baby's name is Barbara, not Duncan. And that she feels absolutely nothing when Joe kisses her. In fact, she's so good Joe almost forgets what he's looking for….
















Two brand-new stories in every volume…twice a month!


Duets Vol. #43

“If you seek escapist fare, sensuality, romance and a good story, look no further…” than talented Temptation author Jamie Denton, says Under the Covers. Joining her this month is new writer Holly Jacobs with the delightfully funny I Waxed My Legs For This? Enjoy!

Duets Vol. #44

Popular Jacqueline Diamond returns to Duets this month. Romantic Times notes she always “delivers a wonderful romance…and combines it with a quirky cast of characters.” Paired with Jacqui is Isabel Sharpe, “a name to watch in the romance genre for her excellent characterizations and smooth plotting,” says Affaire de Coeur.

Be sure to pick up both Duets volumes today!


Excuse Me? Whose Baby?

Jacqueline Diamond

Follow That Baby!

Isabel Sharpe






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Contents


Excuse Me? Whose Baby? (#uffce2811-1472-55f9-84a5-14ee0067e23a)

Chapter 1 (#u9b27a3e4-5828-52b1-9a3a-3e8ba7c32846)

Chapter 2 (#ub360ece3-264d-5155-83a1-0b3d8eab0305)

Chapter 3 (#u634d877f-4141-5812-b90e-b259f9159f08)

Chapter 4 (#u0b600e0b-875d-5c6b-ad40-0d756b3d3bfe)

Chapter 5 (#u76f599b9-f625-58cc-97d8-176c14351f63)

Chapter 6 (#u912ccba7-ac5d-57c6-b018-d4b941fc4f19)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Follow That Baby! (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)


Excuse Me? Whose Baby?

Jacqueline Diamond




“So, what’s going on?”


Jim asked, leaning back in his chair.

Dex wished she were anywhere but here. The law office was decorated in such intense black and white that humanity seemed like an intrusion. Then, from a back office, she heard a baby cry. If it went with the decor, it must be a baby penguin.

“Well,” Burt Page said, folding his hands atop his desk, “this is an odd situation. I have Dr. Saldivar’s will here. You’re both named.”

“But why?” Dex couldn’t imagine that Dr. Saldivar would leave her so much as a test tube.

Jim shook his head. “I don’t understand, either.”

“It has to do with Ayoka,” said the attorney.

“Who?” Dex asked.

Burt cleared his throat. “She’s the, er, baby.”

“What baby?” Jim glanced at Dex. “If Dr. Saldivar adopted a child, what could that possibly have to do with either of us?”

“Ayoka isn’t adopted. She’s yours. Uh…both of yours.”


Dear Reader,

Small colleges are delightfully offbeat places where eccentric personalities can bloom. Perpetual students like my heroine, Dex, live in a world apart from the rest of us, so for her I dreamed up Clair De Lune, California, and De Lune University for Excuse Me? Whose Baby?

I practically grew up on a college campus. My school in Nashville, Tennessee, was affiliated with Peabody College for Teachers, where my mother was an art professor. I later attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

My hero, Jim Bonderoff, needed a different brand of individuality from Dex, so I created a household of ex-marines with literally no holds barred! I enjoyed seeing how these two different realms meshed in my new book and I hope you will, too.

Please write me at P.O. Box 1315, Brea, CA 92822!

Sincerely,







Books by Jacqueline Diamond

HARLEQUIN DUETS

2—KIDNAPPED?

8—THE BRIDE WORE GYM SHOES

37—DESIGNER GENES

HARLEQUIN LOVE & LAUGHTER

11—PUNCHLINE

32—SANDRA AND THE SCOUNDREL


In loving memory of Ambrose “Joe” Mercier and his wonderful sense of humor.




1


“YOUR LAWYER CALLED.”

Dex Fenton was trotting down the creaky wooden steps of the English building, carrying a pile of essays she’d just collected from a Shakespeare class, when she heard Professor Hugh Bemling’s remark.

Lawyer? Whose lawyer was he talking about?

The thin, bearded professor stood in his office doorway, cleaning his glasses with his shirttail. Shaking back a mass of flyaway brown hair that threatened to block her vision, Dex looked around the hall, but she didn’t see anyone else he could have been addressing.

“I don’t have a lawyer,” she ventured.

“Well, a lawyer called and asked for you,” he said.

Dex tried to ignore the sinking sensation in her stomach. She didn’t know any lawyers and she preferred to keep it that way. Nevertheless, she refused to let herself be intimidated by anyone, ever. “Did you catch his name?”

“I wrote it down.” Hugh, who regularly got lost in the library stacks and had addressed Dex as Dixie for her first three months as his teaching assistant, fished through his pockets. He dragged out a laundry receipt and his campus health card before handing her a crumpled note.

Dex squinted at the ink-smeared letters. “‘O wavy hair, O beauteous maiden,”’ she read, and stopped. Obviously, this was not a telephone message but a poem of an embarrassingly personal nature.

Hugh’s cheeks, or what was visible of them beneath his gray-flecked facial hair, flushed bright red as he snatched back the paper. “That’s…some random thoughts I jotted down. I can’t think where I put your message.”

Dex adjusted her stack of essays. “I’m sure it was for someone else.” And so was the poem, she hoped. “I’d better get going. I’ll have these graded by Monday.”

“Have what graded? Oh, the papers, yes.” Hugh patted his shirt pockets. “I know that note’s here somewhere. Let me check in my office.”

“Thanks, Hugh, but you don’t need to…” She didn’t bother to finish. He was already gone.

There was no point in waiting. Once inside, he would get so busy pawing through piles of journals that he’d forget what he was looking for.

Anyway, Dex had another job to do. In addition to assisting the professor, she made ends meet by working as a campus courier.

She’d earned a B.A. and a master’s degree in English, but her parents, both college professors, weren’t impressed. Dex had completed the coursework for her Ph.D., but found herself stuck on writing her dissertation.

She just couldn’t seem to work up much enthusiasm for it. Or, maybe, for becoming Dr. Dex Fenton and having to leave the friendly environs of Clair De Lune, California, to take whatever college teaching post she could scrape up.

So she worked two part-time jobs and rode a bicycle and lived in an efficiency apartment over a garage. Most of the time, she rather enjoyed things the way they were.

Out in the sunshine, she hurried around the brick building to the bike rack, where she stuck the essays into her bike’s side compartments and put on her helmet. She hoped she had enough room left to carry today’s campus deliveries. Fortunately, today was Friday, usually a light mail day.

As she mounted her bike and set off, a few jacaranda blossoms drifted onto Dex’s arm. Some of the lavender petals, which appeared every spring as sure as the swallows came back to Capistrano, clung to her pink sweater and blue jeans.

“O wavy hair, O beauteous maiden.” Spring was certainly getting to Professor Bemling, Dex thought. He was a cute guy, if you liked absentminded forty-year-olds. At twenty-six, though, she considered him too old for her.

The kind of guy she wanted was in his early thirties, with sun-streaked dark hair and alert brown eyes. He gave the impression of being tall, although he wasn’t quite six feet, and he had slim hips that moved with a sensuous rhythm.

She shook her head. Why on earth was she thinking of a man she wanted nothing to do with?

The main section of De Lune University was laid out in an old-fashioned rectangle, its symmetry marred only by the jutting addition of the glass-and-steel faculty center. Dex was passing that facility, which was probably why her mind had gone skittering across memories from a crisp evening four months ago.

The holiday faculty party had featured mistletoe and dance music, tipsy flirtations and a general letting-down of inhibitions. In an eggnog-induced blur, she’d felt a man’s dark eyes catch hers with unexpected intensity.

He’d asked her to dance and laughed at everything she said. She didn’t resist when he whirled her onto the patio.

He’d smoothed her unruly curls with both hands, then kissed her senseless. It was all so blurry, so sensational and so…insane. Dex pedaled faster, trying to put the scene, and the memory of what had followed, behind her.

Half a quadrangle farther, at a rear entrance to the administration building, she banged on the door. This was the squirrely abode of Fitz Langley, the maintenance and communications supervisor.

“Hey, Fitz!” she yelled. “Got any stuff for me to deliver?”

The door rattled and shook as the rusty lock stuck. Finally, it wrenched open and out poked a head worthy of mounting on a hunter’s wall. A shaggy chestnut mane framed a broad leonine forehead, a flattened nose and a mouth that could roar but rarely did.

The door opened wider under pressure from Fitz’s short, stubby frame, and he handed her two padded envelopes and a box. “Most of the stuff’s already been delivered, but these just came in. By the way, some lawyer called you.”

Dex got that sinking feeling again. Apparently an attorney really was looking for her. And looking hard.

Could someone be suing her? If so, he’d be sorely disappointed. Her two jobs barely paid enough to scrape by, and she owed a pile of student loans that would become due the moment she finished her doctoral dissertation. Whenever that might be.

“What lawyer?” she asked. “Has he got a name?”

“I e-mailed you.”

“I only check my mail when I enter grades in the computer.” Dex was annoyed by e-mail, phones, answering machines and anything else that interrupted her thinking. Not that her thinking was terribly profound, but how was it ever going to get that way if things kept jangling and blipping at her? “Can’t you just tell me?”

“Once I input data, I erase it from my personal memory banks.” With a shrug, Fitz vanished into his lair.

Dex strapped the deliveries onto the back of her bike. As she pedaled off, she wondered if someone could have died. She hoped not. And left her money. She still hoped not.

Her parents in Florida were both in excellent health, as far as she knew. She called them infrequently, since they listened only when she had some accomplishment to dazzle them with. Still, she would have heard if they were ill.

Her only other close relative was her younger sister, Brianna, a precocious twenty-four-year-old magazine editor. If anything happened to her, it would be her husband calling, not a lawyer. Dex was certain they had no Midas-touched great-aunt who might have popped off. In fact, no rich person had ever crossed her path except once, and she would just as soon never see or hear from him again.

As if to remind her of that one lapse, she found herself again passing the faculty center, going in the other direction. Dex gritted her teeth and sped up.

She didn’t know what had gotten into her that night. He was the wrong sort of man for her entirely. Too bold. Too confident.

She needed someone gentle and understanding, someone who could offer the warmth she’d missed while growing up. Even at the holiday party, she’d known she was making a big mistake. Yet in the arms of Mr. Hot Stuff, she’d been transformed into a hormone-charged Jezebel.

The only fortunate aspect to the whole night was that no one had noticed the man entering and leaving Dex’s apartment. In Clair De Lune, the walls might not have ears but everyone else did, and took notes, too.

She rounded a corner and jerked the handlebars to avoid colliding with two lovesick students standing on the sidewalk, their jean-clad legs entwined, their lips locked and their hands earnestly groping each other. Spring was, of course, the mating season among primates enrolled at De Lune University.

At the art department, Dex raced up the steps and, with a brisk greeting, set the box on the secretary’s desk. Some days she stuck around to chat, but today she was sure she could hear those essays grumbling in her saddlebags. And then there was the annoying question of why that lawyer might be calling her.

She left one of the envelopes at the music department and headed to the science complex, which was located in a separate quadrangle. Her last delivery was for the fertility research center.

As soon as she entered, she noticed something odd. Usually the place had a sterile look, with the receptionist sitting alone at her desk. Today, however, professors, graduate students and technicians formed solemn clumps in the pale peach entryway.

Dex spotted a doctoral student she knew. “Hey, LaShawna, what’s going on?”

The tall African-American woman swung toward her. Instead of giving an upbeat greeting, LaShawna Gregory hugged her clipboard as if it were a life preserver. “It’s Dr. Saldivar. She’s had an accident.”

“An accident?” Dex had never heard of an explosion occurring in an infertility lab. Except maybe a population explosion. “Here?”

“No, in India.” Unshed tears glimmered in the young woman’s eyes. “She was due back yesterday from a medical conference but…” She bit her lip. “We keep hearing rumors. Something about an elephant.”

Helene Saldivar was a brilliant researcher who helped couples have kids. Tall and rawboned, the woman strode through life, her manner brisk but kindly. “Her patients must be upset.”

“Her patients?” said LaShawna. “She doesn’t actually treat any…”

The receptionist marched over and plucked the envelope from Dex’s hands. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s still work to be done around here.”

Dex nodded guiltily. “I hope the accident isn’t serious,” she told the graduate student, and hurried out. Eager to start grading papers, she sped along the three blocks from campus to the apartment she rented from the retired dean of comparative literature.

Amid a block of pastel-painted bungalows and pineapple-shaped palm trees on Forest Lane, Dean Marie Pipp’s dark-shingled home lurked like an escapee from a Grimm’s fairy tale. An overarching eucalyptus blocked most of the sunlight from the yard, where spindly herbs dominated the flower beds.

Across the street, little old Mrs. Zimpelman stopped trimming her roses and waved to Dex. Then she dialed her cell phone and made a call to one of her gossipy friends. Mrs. Zimpelman reported all the comings and goings on Forest Lane as if it were Avenue of the Stars.

Dean Pipp, by contrast, minded her own business. Today, however, she must have been watching through the window. When she saw Dex, she came onto the porch, her fringed shawl quivering in the light breeze.

“Yoo-hoo, my dear!” she called. “You have a telephone message!”

Dex already had a good idea whom it was from.

THE LAW FIRM of Page, Bittner and Steele occupied the seventh floor of Clair De Lune’s tallest professional building. It was served by four elevators, two of them out of service and the third dedicated to floors eight through twelve.

Dex waited in the lobby for a ridiculous length of time. She wished she’d stopped to eat lunch, but Dean Pipp, whose farsighted eyes could scarcely decipher her own spidery handwriting, said the attorney needed to see her either at one or at once, which in this case amounted to the same thing.

“It’s some important fellow downtown,” she’d said. “You know, the firm of Something, Something and Something. Mr. Something ran for mayor last year, didn’t he? It’s his partner Mr. Something who wants to see you.”

“Page, Bittner and Steele,” Dex had deciphered when she took the note. It was a prestigious partnership. What on earth could they want, and why the urgency?

Curious and tired of the constant messages, Dex had hopped on her bike and headed for the firm.

Across the marble-floored lobby, the revolving door swung into action. Although she was blinded by a burst of sunlight reflecting off the glass doors, she heard awed murmurs from the other elevator hopefuls, as if a celebrity had entered the building.

Dex’s vision cleared. Toward the elevator bank strolled the confident figure of the town’s self-made multimillionaire, who also happened to be one of De Lune University’s biggest benefactors and a visiting member of its computer faculty.

His body was toned and lean. His brown hair retained a hint of sun bleaching, even though it was years since he’d given up surfing for long days running his computer software firm and long nights making women very, very happy.

James Bonderoff was known for his sophisticated lifestyle and, judging by the pictures in the local newspaper, his exquisite taste in women. He preferred gorgeous executives and professional women, all of whom looked terrific getting in and out of his expensive cars.

He didn’t usually go for women with crinkly hair who tended toward plumpness. He probably didn’t even remember Dex.

James gave the group a puzzled smile. “Something wrong with the lifts?”

At that moment, the only working elevator opened. The crowd parted like the Red Sea to let him enter.

Dex tried to duck back, but she was standing too close to the doors. The crowd swept her in, right next to the last man on earth she ever wanted to see again.

He smelled of sunshine and expensive aftershave, and he wore his silk suit as casually if it were jeans and a T-shirt. Beneath the elegant fabric, there was no mistaking the muscular build of the man. Especially since the crowd was mashing her right into his pecs.

In the enclosed space, his dominant presence aroused a prickly combination of uneasiness and longing. There was too much of him, Dex decided. The legs were too long, the shoulders too broad, the face too sculpted.

She couldn’t imagine herself rolling around in a delirium of sweaty ecstasy with such a man. Or rather, she didn’t want to imagine it, because she had done it and regretted it ever since.

A tall woman on the far side of the elevator gave Jim a come-hither look and flirtatiously finger combed her hair. Dex was impressed. She couldn’t drag her fingers more than two inches through her tangled mane without the aid of a blowtorch.

As they stopped at floor after floor, the occupants dispersed. For the last leg, there were only two people in the elevator.

Dex edged away from Jim, keeping her gaze averted. With luck, he’d go striding off at the seventh floor, never to be seen again.

“Don’t I know you?” The remark rumbled through her nervous system. She felt his breath whisper across the crown of her head, which was all he could see.

What the heck? Lifting her chin, she met his eyes squarely. “You might say that.”

She could see at once that she’d misjudged the distance. She was closer than she’d thought, so close that when the elevator stopped, the tiniest stumble brought her against his arm.

She drew back in time to glimpse surprise on his face. And recognition. Oh, heavens, not recognition!

“Didn’t we—?” Jim stopped in mid faux pas.

“That was my twin sister,” Dex said. “The one who does stupid things at faculty parties.”

His face registered confusion. Curiosity. Doubt. When the doors opened, Dex hurried to exit, forestalling further conversation.

The name of the law firm blazed from glass doors dead ahead. Apparently the partnership took up the entire seventh floor.

“Paying a visit to your lawyer?” Jim asked. He was very close to Dex’s ear, or else his baritone reverberated at a particularly sympathetic frequency.

“My lawyer?” Good heavens, what kind of budget did the man think she had? “Well, you know how it is. Between the personal trainer, the live-in hair stylist and the full-time guru, I had to let somebody go. So I decided to come fire my lawyer.”

Her humor fell flat. His silence, possibly offended or merely bored, followed her through the glass doors. She’d made another great impression, Dex thought uneasily.

The law office, she discovered as she entered, was decorated in such intense black and white that humanity seemed like an intrusion. Then, from a back office, she heard a baby cry. If it went with the decor, it must be a baby penguin.

On sighting Jim, the receptionist snapped to attention. The only other person present was a young man tending the plants. He stared at Dex’s chest so hard that he accidentally watered the file cabinet.

“Mr. Bonderoff!” the receptionist said. “This is an honor. And you must be Miss, uh, Fenton. Mr. Page is waiting for you.”

“For which one of us?” Dex asked.

“Both,” the woman said.

“The two of us?” Jim seemed as taken aback as she was. “There must be some mistake.”

“Why, no,” the woman said. “Please, go right in.”

Dex and Jim exchanged glances. This, she realized instantly, was a mistake. Those dark eyes of his plugged into her as if he were installing his software directly on to her hard drive.

They had only one thing in common, she reminded herself as she dragged her gaze away, one stolen night, slightly tipsy but not full-out drunken. She didn’t want a repeat. She also couldn’t imagine what possible involvement a lawyer might have.

“Does this guy represent you?” she asked.

Jim shook his head. “My company has its own legal department in-house. I’m as mystified as you are.”

Now they had two things in common, Dex mused.

Following the secretary’s directions, they crossed the salt-and-pepper tile and entered an office the size of a roller rink. The black-and-white theme was no more appealing here, Dex found, even when expressed in a diamond-pattern carpet and a gleaming black desk.

A wall of windows overlooked the shake-shingle and red tile roofs of downtown Clair De Lune. One tidy block after another of low buildings spread in all directions, some constructed of Spanish-style white stucco, others of funky wood. Even from this height, she could make out window boxes overflowing with petunias and geraniums.

She wished she were outside, anywhere but here. James Bonderoff’s nearness was proving even more disturbing than his absence had been.

From behind the massive desk emerged a man with stooped shoulders and pale eyes. “Burt Page,” he said. “We’ve met.” He held out his hand to Jim.

“Oh, yes. Chamber of Commerce breakfast last month, right?” Jim returned the handshake.

“What’s this all about?” Dex asked.

“Ah, Miss Fenton. Please have a seat, both of you.”

Jim draped himself over a chair. Dex perched on an identical one and had to prop her gym shoes on a crossbar because her feet didn’t reach the floor.

“Well.” Burt Page folded his hands atop his desk. “This is an odd situation.”

“What is?” Jim asked.

“It’s about Helene Saldivar,” said the attorney. “You do know her?”

“I’ve funded some of her research,” the millionaire said.

“That’s your only connection with her?”

Jim cleared his throat. “She ran some, well, private medical tests for me. As a favor.” Quickly, he added, “She’s a fine person. Nothing wrong, I hope?”

Instead of answering, the lawyer said, “And you, Miss Fenton? You knew her as well, I believe?”

“Sort of.” Dex squirmed. The kind of contact she’d had with Helene Saldivar wasn’t something she cared to discuss in front of James Bonderoff. “I heard she had some kind of problem with an elephant.”

“I’m afraid so.” The lawyer shuffled a sheaf of papers on his desk. “It seems that, while she was in India, she suffered a coronary.”

Jim frowned. “She had a heart attack?”

“It was an unfortunate coincidence,” said the attorney. “Although it’s not uncommon for a motorist to suffer an attack and crash the car, it’s the first time I’ve heard of anyone being stricken and falling off an elephant.”

“Is she going to be all right?” Jim leaned forward, his hands clenched. What kind of tests had she run for him, anyway? Dex wondered.

The lawyer stopped rattling the papers. “I’m afraid the accident was terminal.”

Dust motes swirled against the white wall behind him as silence reigned. After a moment, Dex said, “You mean she’s dead?”

Page nodded. “I have her will here. You’re both named.”

“But why?” She couldn’t imagine that Dr. Saldivar would leave her so much as a test tube. Dex had simply become, at the doctor’s request, an egg donor to help out some of her desperate patients.

Then she remembered with a jolt that, according to LaShawna, Dr. Saldivar didn’t treat patients.

“I don’t understand, either.” Jim’s voice had a hoarse quality. “What’s going on?”

“It has to do with the disposition of Ayoka,” said the lawyer.

“The elephant?” Dex peeled off a loose bit of fingernail polish. The rose-colored flake dropped onto the black-and-white carpet, where it stood out like a neon sign.

“No, no.” Burt Page cleared his throat. He stared at his desktop, then at the ceiling, then out the window. “Ayoka isn’t an elephant. She’s the, er, baby.”




2


NORMALLY, Jim’s brain worked on multiple tracks like the quantum computer—which so far was only theoretical. He could solve so many problems simultaneously that his brain must be operating in various universes. In none of those universes, however, did Burt Page’s comments make any sense.

“What baby?” he asked. “If she went to India to adopt a child, what could that possibly have to do with either of us?”

“Ayoka isn’t adopted.” The lawyer’s Adam’s apple made a noteworthy trip up his throat. “She’s yours. Uh…both of yours.”

Dex’s face went white. She swayed in her chair.

Jim caught her arm to steady her. As he did, a strand of her scouring-pad mane brushed his cheek. It smelled like herbal shampoo, he noted in a daze.

The woman bore only a faint evolutionary resemblance to the type of ladies he usually dated, yet she aroused a powerful male response. Four months ago, she’d sent him spiraling out of control. Jim Bonderoff was a man who never lost control.

He’d luxuriated in her spontaneity and her ample curves. She didn’t fit the image of a wife and mother that he’d formed in his mind, yet he’d begun to think, for the first time in years, that perhaps he should stop trying to control every aspect of his life and simply trust his instincts.

Then she’d announced that she was leaving town and had declined to give any forwarding address. He’d been bitterly disappointed and had contemplated pursuing her to the ends of the earth.

A few days later, his common sense had reasserted itself. She was obviously the wrong woman for him, and both of them knew it. So he’d taken steps to make sure he would never lose control that way again.

Now, however, her warm presence penetrated all the layers of his consciousness. He ached to cup that pointed little chin and to touch her wiry hair, which straggled in all directions as if spread across a pillow. Not to mention what he’d like to do to those rosebud lips.

“Are you all right, Miss Fenton?” Burt leaned across his desk. “Perhaps I should summon a doctor.”

“I’m all right.” Dex wiggled out of Jim’s grasp. “And there’s no need to prop me up, either.”

“You were sagging,” he said.

“Wrong.”

“Swaying, then.”

“Catching my breath,” she snapped.

Jim wondered what had gotten into him. Hair spread across a pillow? Rosebud lips? Barbed wire and fangs were more like it.

“You were saying?” he prompted the lawyer.

“Dr. Saldivar gave birth to a daughter nine months ago,” Burt said. “She’s called Ayoka, which I understand is a Yoruban name meaning ‘one who causes joy all around.’ Annie for short.”

This was interesting, but pointless. “I still don’t see how she could be my child,” Jim said. “Dr. Saldivar and I never—” how was he going to phrase this diplomatically? “—strayed from the vertical.”

“But she did conduct some tests of a personal nature, isn’t that right?” Burt leveled him a man-to-man gaze. Having served in the Marines, Jim knew what it meant. This has to do with your manhood. It’s a guy thing. Don’t make me spell it out in front of the lady.

Jim made the connection. He hadn’t wanted to accept that this baby might actually be his but, when confronted, he could hardly deny it.

All of his adult life, he had considered fatherhood an impossible dream. After suffering a double attack of the mumps in adolescence, he’d feared he might be sterile.

Out of sympathy for others with similar problems, he’d begun donating money to fertility research.

About a year and a half ago, he’d mentioned the subject to Dr. Saldivar at the dedication of a new wing of the university’s fertility research center, which he’d funded. She’d offered to test his sperm discreetly.

A short time later, Jim had learned that he was potent enough to father a whole brood. His sperm, Helene had told him, practically leaped out of the test tube like little dolphins.

Apparently she’d kept a few of those dolphins for her own use. The realization hit him hard. He made an uncharacteristic choking sound. “I’m the father?”

Burt folded his hands on the desk. Instead of answering directly, he said, “As a young woman, Dr. Saldivar didn’t want children, so she had her tubes tied. As the years went by, however, she changed her mind, but the operation couldn’t be reversed. I suppose you might say that her biological alarm clock went off.”

“Okay, she needed a father for her baby and she chose me, without my consent,” Jim acknowledged. “But you said she had her tubes tied. If she couldn’t produce an egg, then who…”

He stopped. Inside the room, the silence coagulated. Outside, a car horn ayoogaed the Lone Ranger theme.

Even a man with a brain like a very old computer, or possibly a set of Tinkertoys, could get the picture. Jim looked at Dex. She picked at her fingernails, her gaze averted.

“That’s right,” Burt said. “Miss Fenton is the mother. Biologically speaking.”

Dex stopped shredding her manicure and addressed the lawyer. “I never authorized such a thing. We’ll put her up for adoption, of course. That was why I donated my eggs, to give some loving parents a much-wanted baby.”

Give her up? Until this moment, Jim had been oblivious to the fact that he had a daughter, but he knew immediately that he wasn’t going to let strangers raise her.

He’d wanted a child for years. Not, admittedly, out of wedlock, and certainly not with Dex Fenton. But fate, in the form of Helene Saldivar, had taken matters out of his hands.

“Don’t you even want to meet her?” Burt was saying.

“No,” said Dex.

Jim felt a sneaking sense of regret that this fireball didn’t care about her own baby, but perhaps it was for the best. “I’ll take her. Sight unseen. If I have a daughter, I’ll accept full responsibility.”

“What do you know about raising a child?” Dex demanded. “Can you change a diaper? Do you know anything about burping a baby?”

“I can learn,” he said.

Burt raised both hands in a paternalistic gesture. “Perhaps it would help if you met Annie. She’s with her nanny in the other room.”

Jim remembered hearing a baby cry earlier. Now he couldn’t wait to meet her. “Absolutely! And she’s going home with me. I’ll change a diaper right here on your desk if I have to.”

The attorney’s nostrils flared. “That won’t be necessary. Miss Smithers! You can come in now!”

DEX FOUGHT against showing the slightest weakness. The last thing she needed was to get dizzy and have Jim grab her again. It wasn’t fair that a mere mortal could light fires with his fingertips.

She didn’t want him to touch her, and she didn’t want to see this baby. If she did, Dex might make a decision that would be catastrophic for the little girl.

Every child deserved a loving home with parents who were capable of nurturing her with laughter and tenderness. No decent mother would condemn Annie to life with an arrogant playboy posing as a father. Nor would she take the baby herself, when she knew that inside her hot-tempered exterior lay a heart of ice.

Dex had been raised by parents who didn’t know how to love, only how to approve or disapprove. Often she heard their voices in her mind critiquing her every action, and in her own tone when she corrected a student. She would never inflict such a parent on an innocent baby.

An honest person didn’t shrink from admitting her shortcomings. What Dex wanted most, the loving family she’d never known, was beyond her ability to create. But she was capable of a selfless act. She would save Annie from a similar fate.

She steeled herself as a rake-thin woman entered the office, pushing a stroller. Strapped inside, with hair frizzing into a halo and a plump body wiggling to get free, was…Dex.

A tiny Dex. A nine-month-old Dex, all set to make the same mistakes as she blundered through life, to quail before the same unkind children who teased her about her adolescent chubbiness, to be scorned by the same self-centered teenage boys and to cry herself to sleep at night.

Annie needed a home with parents who could shield and support her. She deserved to grow up happier and with a greater capacity for love than the mother she resembled down to the smallest spiral of her DNA.

“It’s amazing.” Leaping from his chair, Jim went to crouch beside his daughter. “She looks exactly like me.”

“Like you?” Dex couldn’t believe it. “Since when do you have curly hair?”

“Oh, that.” He shrugged off the comment. “Haven’t you noticed her eyes? They’re mine. You can’t miss it!” Unstrapping Annie, he lifted her to his shoulder.

Silently, Dex conceded the point. The baby did have piercing brown eyes like his, not her blue ones. Still, it was a small resemblance.

Entranced at rising to such heights, the baby giggled and waved her arms. Nonsense syllables bubbled up. “Ga ga da da ba ba.”

“Did you hear that?” Jim demanded. “She said Dada!”

“You’re fantasizing,” Dex countered.

“I suggest the two of you come to some agreement between yourselves,” Burt said from behind his desk. “In her will, Dr. Saldivar explained the baby’s genesis and recommended that you receive joint custody since she has no close relatives. I suppose you could battle this out in court, but I doubt that would be in the best interests of the baby.”

Nor of Dex’s pocketbook, either. In fact, the battle would be lost before it began, since the best legal representation she could afford would be a student from De Lune University’s law school.

Last year, the campus legal aid center had handled a disputed family case in which, if she recalled correctly, the father ended up with custody of his mother-in-law and the judge took home the baby. Or, at least, that’s the way it had sounded in the campus newspaper.

“There’s no question about it. I’ll take charge from here.” Jim turned to the nanny. “Miss Smithers, I’d like you to work for me.”

“That can be arranged.” The nanny frowned at the baby in Jim’s arms and whipped out a comb. “Just a minute, sir.” Standing on tiptoe, she dragged the comb through the baby’s crinkled hair. It stuck after two inches.

“Naturally, I’ll match your salary,” he said. “You’ll get the same benefits and retirement plan as my other employees.”

“Dr. Saldivar’s salary would not be adequate. I’m well aware of who you are, sir.” Without waiting for his reply, the nanny produced a bottle marked Curl Relaxer and spritzed it over Annie’s head. The baby let out a wail and clapped her hands to her scalp. “No, no, no!” Miss Smither’s scolded. Pushing the tiny hands away, the nanny yanked the comb through the locks. “She’s lost her headband again. I think she must eat them.”

“Was Dr. Saldivar underpaying you?” Adjusting his grip on Annie, Jim wiped a blob of curl relaxer from his cheek.

“Dr. Saldivar had to make do on a researcher’s income. You don’t,” the woman responded tightly, and from her purse produced a plastic headband with gripper teeth. “Now hold still, Ayoka.” She clamped the thing across the baby’s temples and scraped back the hair. Tears welled in the little girl’s eyes.

“I’m willing to raise your salary if you’re being underpaid,” Jim said. “But only if you’re being underpaid.”

Dex couldn’t stand it any longer, not when tears were rolling down the baby’s cheeks. “Don’t you touch her!” she yelled at Miss Smithers. “You horrible woman, can’t you see that headband is hurting her?” Racing across the room, she removed the plastic band from Annie’s head and shoved it into the nanny’s grasp.

“I won’t have a child in my charge going around with messy hair.” The nanny looked down her nose at Dex’s own frothy mane.

Jim stared in surprise at the tears on his daughter’s cheeks and at the viselike headband. “I didn’t even notice,” he said.

“Of course you didn’t!” Dex retorted. “You’re not a father any more than I’m a mother. And neither is this poor excuse for a nanny. The child needs a real family.”

“I can learn,” the millionaire said quietly. “As for Miss Smithers, she and I have been unable to arrive at a mutually agreed-upon salary, so her services won’t be needed.”

“Cheapskate,” muttered the woman. After collecting her spray bottle from a polished table, where it left a moisture ring, she marched out of the room.

Squirming to watch her departure, Annie slid lower in Jim’s grasp. Her left shoe dropped to the floor, and a strap on her yellow sundress fell across one pudgy upper arm. In another minute, her outfit—which was much too flouncy and fussy, in Dex’s opinion—was likely to fall off entirely.

“Here, I’ll take her.” Without waiting for permission, she slid her hands under the little girl’s arms and transferred the baby to her own shoulder. Annie nestled there contentedly. “For the record, I like your hair, babycakes.”

Jim smiled. “I have to admit, she does resemble you a little.” He didn’t seem to notice the wet spot the baby’s mouth had left on his zillion-dollar suit.

“Resemble me?” Dex wanted to chew him out, but it was hard to stay angry when she held this cooing bundle in her arms. “She is me.” To the lawyer, she said, “A person is entitled to custody of herself, isn’t she? Well, look at us.”

“She’s half you,” Jim conceded. “And half me, Dex. You’ve already said you don’t want her.”

“I want what’s best for her. A good home, not a cold mansion the size of a hotel.” The campus had buzzed with descriptions of Jim’s hilltop residence since he hosted a scholarship fund-raiser last fall.

“Maybe you think she belongs in your apartment?” he replied. “A single room over a garage with clothes strewn everywhere and nothing but tofu in the refrigerator?”

“I wasn’t aware you two were previously acquainted,” Burt said.

Jim halted with his mouth open, then closed it quickly. Dex could feel herself blushing.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. She and this man had once made wild, earthshaking love—five months after the birth of their daughter. That had to be a first.

Not one that she cared to discuss with this lawyer, however. “We’ve met,” she said.

“I have a compromise to propose.” Jim held out a finger to Annie, who grasped it and took a tentative, tooth-free bite. “You don’t believe I can be a good single parent. Okay, I’ll prove it to you.”

“How?” Dex didn’t want to compromise, but she was in no position to dictate terms.

“Move in with me for a few days,” the man said. “I’ll take Annie on a trial basis, and you can watch to make sure I provide a proper home.”

“If you’d like to hire another nanny, there’s a registry in the area,” Burt said.

“I’ll have my secretary contact them,” Jim said. “In the meantime, my butler and my maid can fill in when I’m not available. And Miss Fenton can help, too, if she wishes.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to prove you can make a home for her.” Dex’s arms tightened around Annie. “Your butler and your maid will help out? And then you’ll leave her to a hired nanny? It’s just not acceptable.”

Not to mention that she had no desire to put herself in the middle of this man’s life. She had her own life, modest as it might be. And her privacy. And her sanity.

“The situation is only temporary,” Jim responded. “I expect to be married soon.”

Dex went hot and cold, then hot again. He was going to be married? Surely he didn’t mean to her! But if not, then to whom?

“Congratulations,” Burt said. “The way people gossip around Clair De Lune, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard the news.”

“I like to play my cards close to my chest,” Jim said.

“When did this happen?” Dex demanded, and only the presence of the lawyer restrained her from pointing out that, as recently as the Christmas party, Jim had been fancy-free.

“Nothing has happened, exactly.” He folded his arms with an air of confidence. “I’ve had an informal understanding for years with my high-school sweetheart. She’s a psychology researcher in Washington, D.C. Three months ago, I popped the question. She hasn’t given me an acceptance, but it’s only a matter of time.”

Dex did some mental arithmetic. That was only a month after they’d spent the night together. Why had he suddenly decided to propose to this long-distance amour?

It was true that Dex had given him the brush-off when he asked to see her again. That didn’t excuse his rushing to propose to someone else.

“Just because you might or might not be engaged has no bearing on custody,” she said. “Annie needs parenting now, not whenever your fiancée gets around to giving you an answer.”

Jim’s dark eyes probed hers. She felt, as she had at the Christmas party, the intensity of his will. “I think we should hold this discussion over lunch,” he said. “In private.”

Burt glanced at his watch. “Good idea. I don’t mean to hurry you, but I have another client arriving in a few minutes. By the way, I can have Ayoka’s furnishings and clothes delivered to your house this afternoon if you like, Jim.”

“That would be fine. Dex?”

She hated the sense of being herded like a wandering sheep. Also, she wasn’t crazy about the prospect of spending time alone with Jim Bonderoff, even if it involved free food.

But she had a responsibility to make sure Annie found a proper family. Dex lifted her chin defiantly. “Sure,” she said. “I’d be happy to talk.”




3


JIM ALMOST WISHED he’d brought his European sedan instead of his sports car. It was hard fitting Annie’s car seat into the back, and a real challenge wedging and strapping the stroller and Dex’s bike half in and half out of the trunk.

Nevertheless, once he got into the driver’s seat, he enjoyed squeezing his long legs against Dex’s soft warmth. There were advantages to being cramped.

He chose not to question his physical response to her too closely. That night of the faculty party, he’d blamed it on a few too many drinks. Today, he ascribed his reaction to that delirious spring fever known locally as Clair De Lunacy.

All this had nothing to do with Nancy Verano, his soon-to-be fiancée. She was a special case, apart from day-to-day reality.

“So,” he said as he whipped out of the parking garage into a break in traffic, “what was that business about you going away? When you told me that, I got the idea you were moving. Otherwise I’d have called.”

“I meant I was going away for Christmas vacation.” She squirmed as far to the right as possible. His knee still grazed her thigh, and he didn’t bother to move it.

“You’re sure you weren’t trying to get rid of me?” he persisted.

“Would you be angry if the answer’s yes?”

“Not angry,” he answered. “Puzzled.”

They flared through a yellow light and picked up speed, heading toward the town’s outskirts. The wind coming through the window made Dex’s mane dance around her head like a living thing. “Puzzled as to why I didn’t utterly succumb to your charms?”

“Actually, you did,” Jim reminded her.

“It was the eggnog,” she said. “President Martin made it himself. He loads it with booze.”

Jim had made the same excuse to himself, but hearing it from Dex bothered him. Not that his ego was bruised by the possibility that a woman might embrace him while drunk and reject him when sober.

Still, he’d experienced blissful sexual abandon with this woman, and all indications had been that she’d felt the same way. So why didn’t she want a rematch?

“It wasn’t necessary to make excuses,” he said. “I can take no for an answer.”

She frowned. “I don’t know why I misled you. It’s just that you’re not my type.”

She wasn’t his type, either. At least, he hadn’t thought so until he got to know her.

For someone so small, Dex had a luscious body, full-breasted and slim-waisted. Jim recalled one particular position, when he’d lain on the floor while she lowered herself onto him. They’d both cried out in pure agonized pleasure.

“We certainly fit together well enough,” he said.

“I’m not like the women you usually date,” she said.

They roared through the arching wrought-iron gates of Villa Bonderoff. “How would you know?”

“I’ve seen your picture in the paper at society goings-on,” said the unwitting mother of his child. “Your dates are always tall and skinny.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Jim tried to picture Nancy. His former high-school sweetheart was taller than Dex, definitely, and he didn’t think her breasts were as big, although they’d never gone far enough for him to find out for sure.

He couldn’t see her very clearly in his mind. It was odd, since they’d known each other for twenty years.

The driveway swooped uphill, winding between low trees. Although he’d built the house four years ago, Jim never lost his awe at veering around a corner and catching sight of the white Mediterranean-style swirl of rooms and balconies.

“Wow.” The syllable burst from Dex, followed by the dry comment, “Not exactly cozy.”

“Annie will have plenty of space and lots of toys.” He swung to the right, bypassing the front guest-parking bay. “The best schools and camps, and a horse if she wants one.”

“Is that what you think makes a kid happy? Possessions?” Dex demanded.

“I realize we have different lifestyles.” Jim chose not to harp on the shabby state of her apartment. “But wealth doesn’t preclude love, you know.”

She sat in silence as the car turned into a side driveway that led to the six garages. The butler had left the station wagon outside in one of the striped parking spaces, and Jim slotted the sports car next to it.

He wondered if Dex’s reticence meant he’d scored a point. He hoped so, because he wanted this child more than he’d ever wanted anything, and that was saying a lot.

Annie bubbled with glee as he got out and lifted her from the car seat. Those big brown peepers of hers darted from his face to Dex’s, and then across the sweep of pink bougainvillea tumbling over a retaining wall.

“I called ahead to have my butler fix lunch,” he told Dex as she joined him and Annie on the pavement. “He promised he’d send someone out for formula and baby food.”

“Someone?” Dex trooped alongside as Jim strolled toward the house, taking three steps for every two he made. “How many people work here?”

“Not many,” he said. “There’s Rocky, the butler. And the gardener and the maid.”

“Do they live here?”

“They have apartments over the garages.”

“They sound like kindred spirits,” she said.

Unaccountably, Jim felt a prick of jealousy.

They mounted a curving stone staircase from the driveway to the garden above. The many levels of the site had been one of its primary appeals, although Jim had experienced some regrets later when he saw the problems it created for Rocky. His butler had lost a leg while serving in the Marines.

Still physically fit at forty-one, Rocky hated having anyone give him special treatment, though. He’d always been tough, and he still was.

Come to think of it, Rocky probably figured kids ought to be treated like Marine recruits. For the first time, Jim felt a twinge of worry at the possibility that Annie might not fit into his household quite as easily as he’d assumed.

If Nancy didn’t agree to marry him, he supposed he would have to hire a nanny on a long-term basis, but he didn’t like the idea. Dex was right about a child needing to be with people who loved her.

At the top of the steps, his guest paused to drink in the profusion of flowers peering shyly from a rock garden. There were primroses and petunias, pansies and dianthus and something yellow and daisy like whose name he didn’t know.

“This looks so natural,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

“My landscape architect designed the whole thing, right down to—” Jim frowned at a major weed sprouting near the edge of the bed. “Well, not that.”

He made a mental note to mention it to Kip LaRue, the gardener. It wasn’t the fellow’s fault he was sometimes inattentive. He’d been lucky to survive a helicopter crash that left him with head injuries three years ago.

Jim’s household was a testament to his early years in the Marines. He’d made rough-and-ready friends then, and now he employed some of them.

He was glad he’d called ahead to alert them to Annie’s arrival. Surely at least Grace, the maid, would warm to the little creature.

The smell of disinfectant hit Jim as he opened the side door that led into a sunroom. Dex wrinkled her nose, and Annie stuck out her tongue.

“What’s that smell?” Dex asked. “Never mind, I recognize it. Is somebody sick?”

“Not that I know of.” Jim regarded the glass-topped ice cream table set with expensive china. “It looks like we’re going to eat in here.”

If not for the smell, it would have been a lovely place for lunch. The high-ceilinged room had tall glass windows, a couple of designer trees and a profusion of hanging ferns and fuchsias. Filtered green light gave the air a magical quality, as if it hovered in another dimension.

Someone, however, had scrubbed the flagstone floor with disinfectant and applied liberal doses to the walls. Jim hoped this wasn’t Grace’s idea of how to prepare a house for a baby, but he suspected that might be the case.

“Can we open a window?” Dex blinked, and he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed from the fumes.

“Sure.” When Jim transferred the baby into her arms, Annie grabbed onto her mother like a baby monkey. He had to admit, the kid had strong ideas about whom she belonged to. “Do you have allergies?”

“Not usually. I may be allergic to your house, though,” Dex said.

As he cranked open the tall windows, Jim hoped she was joking. “My maid gets a little carried away sometimes with the cleanser. She used to be a Marine drill sergeant.”

“Are you serious?” Dex buried her nose in Annie’s cheek.

“She mustered out four years ago.”

Before he could explain further, the interior glass door crashed open. It hung on such well-oiled hinges that the slightest push made it crunch into the wall. As always, he jumped, and so did his guest.

A wheeled tray clattered through, covered with domed dishes and a small silver dish mounded with puréed fruit. It was pushed by a big man in camouflage fatigues.

“Attention!” shouted Rocky Reardon, drawing himself up to his full six-foot-five. “Mess is served!”

Dex’s entire body quivered as if the sound had set her vibrating. Annie clapped her hands over her ears. “Ow,” they both said.

Jim glanced anxiously at his butler. In the five years that Rocky had worked for him, the man had maintained strict discipline. Since he treated Jim as his superior officer, this posed no problems. But where would he put a baby in the chain of command?

“Rocky, this is Annie,” he said. “I hope you two will get along.”

Rocky’s gaze fixed on the little girl. It was a quelling look that had once set recruits’ knees to trembling—Jim’s included.

“Ba ba?” said the baby, unafraid, and held out one hand to him.

“She likes me.” Wonder trembled in Rocky’s voice. “Look how little she is! Sir, she’s the spittin’ image of you. Only a whole lot cuter.”

“You like babies?” Dex peered at him. Jim had to admire the way she refused to back off even when faced with this mountain of a man.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Rocky. “I sometimes take care of my nieces and nephews. Can I hold her?”

“Sure.” She waited as the butler walked stiffly across the room. People never suspected that Rocky had an artificial leg unless he chose to take it off and wave it at them, which he’d only done twice—once during a bar fight and another time when the maid demanded he cook hash the way they used to serve it in the Marines.

Rocky cradled the infant. From this great elevation, Annie studied her parents. “Whee!” she said.

“I could feed her in the other room,” the butler suggested. “I’ll hold her on my lap, since we don’t have a high chair yet. She’ll be perfectly safe, ma’am.”

“I suppose that would be all right.” Dex clasped her hands, as if worried but unwilling to insult the man.

“Grace went out for supplies, ma’am, but I processed this fruit here.” With his free hand, Rocky scooped up the silver bowl. “It’s all-natural canned peaches, no additives.”

“Thank you, Rocky,” Jim said.

“Yes, sir.” The man shifted as if trying to figure out how to salute with a baby in one hand and a bowl of puréed fruit in the other, then settled for a nod and left the room. Jim was relieved. He’d been trying for years to get his butler to stop saluting.

Dex peeked under one of the domes. “This meal looks great.”

“Help yourself.” Jim removed another of the covers.

Rocky hadn’t had time to prepare anything hot, but he’d done a fine job on the triangular tuna-salad sandwiches with the crusts trimmed. They were topped by sprigs of mint and accompanied by scoops of homemade potato salad.

They sat down with their plates and glasses of iced tea. A couple of times, Dex looked toward the door as if trying to see where Rocky had taken the baby, but by now they’d vanished into the depths of the house.

It occurred to Jim that a woman who’d just met a child, particularly a child she intended to give up for adoption, shouldn’t be so concerned about its wellbeing. He wondered if Helene Saldivar had shown this much devotion, especially in light of her selection of Miss Smithers as nanny.

“What are you thinking?” Dex asked after downing a couple of rapid bites.

“I was wondering what kind of mother Dr. Saldivar made,” he admitted.

“Cold and calculating,” she replied promptly.

“I didn’t realize you knew her,” he said.

“So you agree? About her personality, I mean?”

He recalled Dr. Saldivar as he’d last seen her, at a fund-raiser last fall for the fertility center. “She did seem aloof, but I assumed it was her professional demeanor.” Yet, knowing that she’d borne his daughter not long before the fund-raiser, he found it amazing that she’d been able to hide that fact. What a bizarre woman. “You’re right.”

“She must have been warped,” Dex said. “She lied without compunction.”

“On the other hand, you’ve been known to shade the truth yourself.” Jim downed a sandwich and helped himself to seconds.

“You mean about moving away?” Dex said. “I panicked. So did you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You mean it’s a coincidence that you ran off and proposed to another woman one month after we…made each other’s acquaintance?” she said. “You can’t expect me to believe that!”

Jim frowned. He hadn’t seen anything odd about proposing to Nancy a month after loving, and losing, Dex. It had seemed perfectly natural.

He’d planned to marry Nancy for a long time, but their careers had gotten in the way. Especially hers. She’d left Clair De Lune to teach at a small college in Alaska, then jumped at an offer of a university position and research grant in Washington.

Along the way, she’d refused to accept any help from Jim. A word in the right ear, and she could have been working much closer to home. She’d wanted to succeed on her own merits, though, and he respected her decision.

Somehow the years had slipped away without his realizing it. He hadn’t wanted to press her and hadn’t felt any particular urgency about getting married. Not until recently.

“I figured nature was telling me something,” he mused. “That I was ready to settle down.”

She stared at him. “You can’t mean that you had any settling-down thoughts about me!”

No, he didn’t mean that. Did he? Jim tried to recall exactly what he’d been thinking and feeling four months ago, but he couldn’t.

He wasn’t accustomed to self-examination. For heaven’s sake, he was on top of his life, his business and, above all, himself, so why flail around in search of renegade emotions? “Certainly not. The timing was purely coincidental.”

“I see.” Having cleaned her plate, Dex eyed the plates of carrot cake, cheesecake and chocolate mousse arrayed on the cart’s lower shelf. “Do you always have three desserts?”

“Rocky didn’t know what you liked,” he said. “So he gave you a choice.”

“I have to choose?”

“Have all three. There’s more in the kitchen.” Jim watched in amazement as she took him at his word, plopping three plates onto the table.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman eat one dessert, let alone three. None of the skinny executive ladies he sometimes dated did, and as for Nancy…well, he couldn’t remember.

They hadn’t spent much time together since she’d moved away five years ago. Mostly they saw each other on holidays, when she came to visit her parents, or when he went to Washington on business.

It was time to get back to the subject that had brought him and Dex together. “How did you meet Dr. Saldivar, anyway?”

Busy making short work of the carrot cake, she didn’t immediately answer. She approached eating, like everything else, with total absorption.

Jim flashed back to their night of lovemaking. She’d brought him alive in ways he hadn’t known were possible. Her mouth, her hands, her breasts had excited him almost past bearing.

“One of my jobs is campus courier,” Dex said, serenely unaware of the direction of his thoughts. “I met her while delivering mail to her department. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but she said she needed a donor to help some of her desperate patients have children. So I agreed.”

“Maybe she was sincere,” he said. “Initially, anyway.”

“Dr. Saldivar didn’t see patients,” Dex said.

“She didn’t?”

“I found that out today. That’s why I’m so angry. It was a con job, pure and simple.” She patted the corners of her mouth with her cloth napkin. “How about you? How exactly did she get her hands on your sperm?”

The way she phrased the question was so startling that Jim choked on a bite of sandwich and went into a coughing fit. Before he could recover, Dex hopped up, ran around the table and grasped him from behind.

As he struggled to break free, he felt a fist prod into his stomach. Three short thrusts against his solar plexus threatened to launch his entire set of internal organs into outer space.

“Should I call the paramedics?” she shouted.

Somehow, perhaps because his life depended on it, he managed to wheeze, “No.” After a couple of swallows of iced tea, he added, “Not unless you plan to attack me again. Then I might need a stretcher.”

Dex resumed her seat. “It’s called the Heimlich maneuver.”

“I’ve heard of it. I just didn’t realize it was a new form of assault.” He waved away her response. “I’m kidding. It’s a good skill to know, but you were too quick off the launching pad. I could have coughed that food up by myself.”

“Better safe than sorry,” said Dex.

He didn’t have a response. Not a coherent one, anyway. Instead, as soon as he caught up on his breathing, he returned to her earlier question. “You asked about Helene.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have.” Dex quirked an eyebrow. “What went on between the two of you really isn’t my business.”

“Me and Dr. Saldivar?” He felt like coughing again, but restrained himself. “Not even remotely. Besides, don’t you think I’d have questioned her motives if she suddenly whipped out a vial and preserved a specimen?”

“She could be very persuasive.”

He laughed. “I suppose so, but in my case, she was doing me a favor. Making sure I was fertile.”

“Why?” Dex asked.

It was disconcerting, the way she asked such personal questions without blinking. It threw him off balance, and Jim wasn’t accustomed to anyone else getting the upper hand. Or forming one into a fist and plunging it into his midsection, either.

“There’s no need to go into details,” he said. “If you’re going to be living here, we need to respect each other’s privacy.”

“Whoa!” She stopped halfway through the slice of cheese cake. “I haven’t agreed to that.”

So she wanted to play hardball. Well, Jim was a master at that game.

“Fine. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the custody papers, you can sign Annie over to me, and that’ll be the end of it.” He folded his arms and leaned back to await the fireworks.




4


INSTEAD OF ARGUING, Dex regarded him calmly. “What amazes me is that a man who has everything could be so selfish.”

In his outrage, Jim forgot about maintaining the upper hand. “What makes you say that?”

“You just want Annie because she’s got your genes,” Dex said. “You can’t love her, because you don’t know her. And since you’re planning to get married, you can have plenty more children. Your wife probably won’t be crazy about taking care of a stepdaughter, anyway. So why deny her to some family whose empty arms are aching?”

Jim allowed himself a rare moment of self-searching. Was he simply latching onto this baby because her eyes matched his?

No, he decided. If he brought to fatherhood the same determination that had enabled him to build his business into a billion-dollar enterprise, he could make this child the happiest person on earth.

“My daughter will be privileged and loved and special,” he said. “Ask any of my employees what I’m like. Did you know I was voted Clair De Lune’s boss of the year?”

“A child isn’t an employee.” Dex regarded him coolly. Why wasn’t she as impressed by his accomplishments as all the other women he met? Jim wondered.

“As her mother, I can’t let Annie stay here without a fight. I realize that if I get the campus legal aid center involved, I’m likely to end up with custody of Rocky and you’ll have to marry my landlady. But I owe it to my conscience to try.”

Jim remembered the scrambled custody case in question. He hated to admit it, but although his firm had high-priced attorneys on staff, he was terrified of the legal aid center. Its bumbling amateurs had a gift for turning cases so inside out and backward that judges temporarily lost their bearings.

“All I’m asking is for you to move in for a week,” he said. “Observe me in action. See for yourself how happy our daughter will be.” The word our made him lose his train of thought. How had that slipped out?

“No,” Dex replied. “I have a home, as little as you may think of it. And friends. And a life. For all you know, I might even have a boyfriend.”

“Do you?” he demanded, then wondered why the prospect disturbed him. After that one night of bliss, he’d accepted that he and Dex weren’t destined to roll around in the bedroom together again, even though it felt like sheer heaven.

“No,” she admitted.

Jim’s relief lasted only until he remembered the real subject of their discussion. After setting his plate on the cart, he leaned forward earnestly.

“If you don’t want to move in here, fine,” he said. “Leave Annie with me for a while and then see for yourself how she’s doing. If you truly find that I’m unsuited to care for her, I’ll give her up.”

She shook her head. “You won’t. It’s a ploy.”

“I’m not a liar.” He meant what he said. Still, Jim was forced to concede he wasn’t sure he could give up his daughter if push came to shove. “In any case, if we fight it out in court, a judge is unlikely to force me to put Annie up for adoption. At best, we’d get joint custody. Is that what you want?”

A wistful expression touched her face, and for a second, yearning shone in Dex’s eyes. Then she swallowed hard. “I’m not the nurturing type.”

“Then give me a chance.” Jim knew when to press his point. “I promise, if the arrangement really isn’t working, I’ll agree to an adoption. In either case, Annie gets a home and you’re off the hook.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

Far back in the house, male and female voices rose in a dispute. Grace must have returned from the grocery store, and judging by the noise, she and Rocky were disagreeing about the baby.

Jim wished Dex had left the house before the argument erupted, since it didn’t speak well for his household. However, she hadn’t, and he needed to resolve it. “Excuse me for a minute.”

“I’m coming, too.” She scrambled alongside him into the hallway.

He could make out the words clearly now. Rocky was saying, “What idiot sterilizes disposable diapers? For Pete’s sake, you can’t put bleach next to a baby’s skin!”

“I’m not putting it next to her skin, you pie-faced moron!” the maid boomed. “I’m applying it to the outside of the diaper. This gizmo’s probably loaded with germs!”

“The chief assigned me to baby detail, not you. Get away from her,” Rocky growled.

“Are they always like this?” Dex asked as they hurried through the large, gleaming kitchen.

“Occasionally,” Jim admitted. “I think they miss being in action.”

At the entrance to the utility room, he halted. Dex wiggled into the doorway beside him, her hip brushing his thigh. He squelched the impulse to swivel and pin her against the door frame and instead focused on the scene in front of him.

On a changing pad atop the washing machine lay Annie. Before her fascinated gaze, the hulking butler and the nearly six-foot-tall maid, who at thirty-seven was as buffed up as she’d ever been, squared off in a tug-of-war over a disposable diaper. Mercifully, Grace had already set down her bleach bottle, right next to a spray can of antiseptic.

“Give it here!” shouted the maid, and yanked the diaper away from the butler. So caught up were the antagonists that they failed to notice the new arrivals.

Rocky grabbed the diaper and gave another jerk. The fibers parted and the diaper ripped raggedly in half, sending them both stumbling.

“See what you’ve done?” snapped the butler. “Now go wash the latrines. No wonder a knucklehead like you never made sergeant major!” He reached for another diaper from an open plastic carton.

“Don’t you dare let one of those contaminated things touch that sweet little baby’s bottom!” roared Grace.

“I’ll do as I please.” Rocky patted the diaper against Annie’s knee, which was the closest part of her anatomy. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Jim cleared his throat to announce his presence, but it was too late. An infuriated Grace butted headfirst into Rocky’s stomach, bowling him over with a huge oof. On the washer, Annie clapped her hands in delight.

Still doubled up, Rocky grabbed the maid by the waist. He flipped her over his shoulder and sent her sliding onto the floor with a splat.

“That’s enough!” Jim said.

The pair stopped, breathing heavily. From her position flat on her back, Grace glared at him. Rocky didn’t look pleased at the interruption, either.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” he said. “This is between Sergeant Mars and myself.”

He had a point. Jim generally allowed his staff to work out their own differences. They were, after all, competent adults.

As he weighed the situation, Dex hurried across the utility room to the changing station. “Neither of you knows the first thing about babies.”

“Do you?” Jim couldn’t resist asking.

“I baby-sat all through high school.” She pulled another diaper from the package. “First of all, you don’t need to sterilize disposable diapers.”

Rocky beamed. Grace’s mouth twisted in dismay as she got to her feet.

With a speed and ease that left her audience in awe, Dex grasped Annie’s ankles, lifted her little bottom and whipped off the old diaper from beneath her sundress. In milliseconds, the baby was cleaned and rediapered.

“Awesome.” Grace dusted herself off.

“As for you—” Dex swung toward the butler “—leaving a baby unattended in a high place is very dangerous. You should never even take your hand off her while she’s being changed.”

Now both staff members appeared crestfallen. Jim had never seen anyone take on his ex-Marines and win, hands down. He couldn’t resist a sneaking admiration for this diminutive whirlwind.

“We’ll do better in the future, ma’am,” Rocky said.

“You bet you will!” Dex released an exaggerated sigh. “Like it or not, I’m going to have to move in here until you two complete basic training.” She shot a stern look at Jim. “Did you plan this?”

He shook his head. “Honestly, no.”

She handed him the baby. “Try to keep out of trouble while I go pack a few things, will you?”

“I’ll drive you, ma’am,” said Grace.

“Thanks, but I’ve got my bike,” she said, and departed, leaving them all stunned.

After a moment, Rocky said, “She’s quite a woman, sir.”

“I’m afraid we don’t know the half of it yet,” said Jim.

DEX’S LEGS pumped as she cycled along University Avenue. She kept her head down and aimed for speed, trying to work off those three desserts.

Jim lived on the northeastern edge of town, where the Claire De Lune flatlands began to rise into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The university was located due west of his house, also on rising ground.

Much of the land in this part of Clair De Lune remained undeveloped due to the uneven terrain, so there wasn’t much traffic for Dex to contend with. Which was a good thing, with her mind in turmoil.

Had she really agreed to move in with Jim Bonderoff? The man was maddeningly arrogant—boss of the year, indeed!—and knew less than nothing about children. He also had an endearing smile, brown eyes touched with mischief and a masculine way of moving that made her want to chuck off her clothes all over again.

The plan was insane.

Even more inexplicable was Dex’s reaction to Annie. From the moment she’d met her daughter, she’d felt as if the child were a missing part of herself.

It was ridiculous, of course. For the child’s first nine months, Dex hadn’t even known of her existence. Had Helene Saldivar not suffered an untimely death, Annie might have grown up and even wandered across Dex’s path, unrecognized and unremarked.

No. I’d have realized the moment I saw her, no matter where, that she was me. Or, at least, half me.

Rounding a bend in the curving road, Dex spotted the redbrick university dorms ahead on her right. She’d lived there for four years and still missed the camaraderie with her dorm mates.

She would miss her little apartment and her friendship with Marie Pipp, too, when she finished her dissertation and found a teaching job. There was practically no chance of landing one at De Lune U., which hired only experienced full-time teaching staff.

Her parents, on the occasions when they communicated with Dex, harped on the point that it was time to finish her dissertation and launch a stellar career in academe. They would agree, one-hundred percent, about putting Annie up for adoption.

What if I don’t want a stellar career in academe? What if what I really want is right here?

But she couldn’t have it. She was in no position to raise Annie herself, even if Jim would agree. As for the man who had breached her defenses without even trying, he was in love with someone else.

And wrong for her, anyway. Too smooth. Too rich. Too…everything.

Dex pedaled harder. She flew past the entrance to the campus and down University Avenue to Sirius Street, where she turned left into the middle-class residential area in which she lived.

She tried to focus on how good it would feel when she finished her dissertation. She could devote herself to teaching, research and writing professional articles. At last, she would make her own place in the world.

The bike zipped past a cozy bungalow. In the porch swing, a young mother rocked her baby while watching a toddler splash in a wading pool.

Dex’s heart swelled. Why did she keep torturing herself? It was inexplicable, yet since childhood, Dex had treasured forbidden dreams of domesticity.

She’d sneaked romance novels into her bedroom, and in the margins of school notes, invented elaborate baby names like Eldridge and Valeria. Isolated by the twin handicaps of insecurity and overweight, she’d found her greatest pleasure in reading and in babysitting.

But regardless of what her instincts told her, she wasn’t cut out to be a mother. And while Jim Bonderoff might make a decent enough father if he had the right wife, he didn’t, and he might never have. What kind of girlfriend hadn’t bothered to accept his proposal in three months?

What Dex wanted for her daughter was the one thing that had been denied to her: the chance to grow up loved and cherished and nurtured so she could pass those qualities on to her own children. And it was obvious that neither Jim nor his blundering staff members were equipped to give Annie this kind of upbringing.

She turned a corner and swooped down Forest Lane. Mrs. Zimpelman, who was leaning on her rake and listening on the phone, smiled when she spotted the bicycle. She began talking in animated fashion, no doubt boring a friend with the news of Dex’s arrival home.

Across the street, Dean Pipp knelt in the garden snipping herbs into a wicker basket. She wore a floppy black hat, a gingham apron over a shapeless gray dress and a pair of skaters’ pads on her knobby knees.

“Hello, there!” she called. “What did the lawyer want?”

Dex angled her bicycle around the side of the house and came to explain about Helene and Annie and Jim. By the time she finished, Marie had finished gathering her herbs and led the way into her book-filled house.

“I’ll certainly miss you.” The dean removed her apron and knee pads and hung them on a coatrack. “It’s only for a week, though, you say?”

“Or less, if I can persuade him that adoption is the best course.” Dex tried not to dwell on how difficult it was going to be to wrench her daughter away from one self-important father and a pair of no-holds-barred leathernecks.

The elderly woman frowned at a padded envelope lying on her hall table. “Oh, dear, I must have put the mail here and forgotten. What is this?”

Dex glanced at the envelope. It bore the return address of a rare books dealer. “Something you ordered?”

“Well, yes, of course,” said Dean Pipp. “Now I remember. I asked for everything they had about the Richard Grafton controversy. I’m afraid there isn’t much.”

Knowing that her landlady wrote papers about obscure literary matters, Dex tried to dredge the name Richard Grafton from her memory, but failed. “Was he a poet?”

“Oh, surely you remember Richard Grafton.” The dean rattled open a drawer, pulled out a sharp engraving knife and sliced open the envelope to reveal an aging volume. On the cover was imprinted Chronicles of England, by Richard Grafton. “He was a sixteenth-century writer.”

“Refresh my memory,” said Dex.

“It’s all in here.” Her landlady smiled and recited from memory, “‘Thirty dayes hath November, Aprill, June and September, February hath twenty-eight alone, and all the rest have thirty-one.”’

“He wrote that?” Dex asked.

“Yes, but did he write it first?” The dean cocked an eyebrow as if inviting Dex into a fascinating mystery. “There’s a similar poem by William Harrison, written at almost the same time, and rhymes of that nature pop up elsewhere in folklore.”

“I see. So there’s a controversy.” Dex regarded her landlady fondly. Hardly anyone was likely to care who really wrote that bit of doggerel, but she had no doubt that it would make a fascinating article.

“Oh!” Marie dropped the book on the table with a thump. “I nearly forgot! There’s a student in your apartment. She wanted to talk to you about something or other and insisted on waiting. Her name is, let’s see, Coreen or Cara or…”

“Cora Angle.” The student had asked to speak to Dex after receiving a D-plus on a paper. Dex had suggested she drop by so they could have some privacy, but they hadn’t specified a time. “I’d better hurry. She’s upset enough as it is.”

“See you later.” Clearly absorbed in her project, Dean Pipp wandered into the living room, reading the book out loud. She was still wearing her floppy hat.

Hoping that Cora hadn’t been waiting long, Dex let herself out of the house and loped toward the free-standing garage. From the driveway, a straight, weathered staircase led to the apartment. She clattered up and opened the door, which she left unlocked during the day.

The single room looked smaller and darker than usual, by contrast to the expansive scale of Jim’s house. Dex didn’t see anyone, but she heard a tuneless mumble coming from the tiny kitchen. She had to close the door to take a look, because the kitchen was behind it.

Cora Angle, her large frame cramped in the small space, was wiping a dish and carrying on a conversation with herself. “I shouldn’t hang around,” she muttered. “She’s obviously busy. She did promise to see you. I’ll only be in the way.”

One glance at the open cabinets showed Dex that her thrift-store dishes had been rearranged. They were stacked in an orderly manner, the plates and saucers on the lower shelf, cups and glasses on the upper one.

“Oh, hi!” The tall freshman stopped wiping and gave her a tentative smile. Pale blond hair straggled down Cora’s pudgy cheeks, and there was a dust smear on the shoulder of her tan smock.

“You’ve been working hard.” Dex decided not to point out that the new arrangement, while more efficient, put the cups too high for her to reach easily. She could always switch them back later.

“I like to organize things.” The chubby girl watched her apprehensively, as if expecting a rebuke. She reminded Dex of herself not many years ago.

“Well, thank you.” She indicated the half-full coffeemaker. “Care for something to drink?”

“Okay. Sure,” said her guest. “I’m sorry for just showing up. I mean, I know you weren’t expecting me.”

“It’s okay,” Dex assured her. “I told you to drop by, right?”

“Right.” Cora cleared her throat. “Listen, I just came to tell you I decided to drop out. I guess college is too hard for me.”

“If you were smart enough to get in, you’re smart enough to do the work.” Dex frowned as she poured the coffee. She hated to see anyone leave, especially after less than a year. “A lot of people have trouble adjusting. How are your other classes?”

Cora put two spoonfuls of sugar in her coffee and slouched in a seat at the counter. “Cs and a few Ds. College is costing my parents a lot of money, and I’m not doing well enough to justify it.”

“Do you want me to see if there’s financial help available?” Dex refused to give up easily. True, the young woman’s papers and tests had been mediocre and sometimes worse, but she might blossom.

“I’ve already got a partial scholarship.” The young woman shrugged. “Originally, my parents said I should just get a job, but when I won the scholarship, they agreed to help. The thing is, I knew from the first few days that I made a mistake by coming here, but I didn’t want to admit it.”

“What makes you think so?” Dex asked.

The freshman’s forehead wrinkled. “The other kids all seem so sure of themselves. I never know what the teachers expect. I keep trying to guess, and getting it wrong.”

With relief, Dex realized that she might be able to help. “Maybe that’s the problem. You’re too busy trying to second-guess the professors instead of expressing your own point of view.”

“But who would care what I think?” Cora nibbled at the split ends of her hair.

“I do,” Dex said. “Listen, I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” The young woman fiddled with her coffee cup.

“You promise to stay in college for the rest of the semester,” Dex said. “In exchange, I’ll critique your papers in advance for your other classes. I can’t in fairness help you prepare for Professor Bemling’s class, since I’ll be grading you, but what you learn should apply to everything.”

“I—I can’t afford to pay you much,” the freshman said.

“No charge,” said Dex.

“I can’t accept such generosity.” Cora pressed her lips together before continuing. “Besides, I’m sure there are more deserving students.”

I’m going to rescue you whether you want me to or not. “First of all, you deserve my help as much as anybody. Second, I’m not being generous. Consider this a loan,” Dex said. “Next year, you can tutor a freshman who’s having problems, and she can pass the favor on to someone else the following year, and so forth. How’s that?”

Reluctantly, the woman nodded. She must be eighteen or nineteen, and yet she seemed very young. At twenty-six, Dex had considered herself still a kid. Until today.

Now she was a mother. And a tutor. Next to Cora, she felt practically ancient.

Then she remembered that she was going to be staying at Jim’s. “Let me give you another address. I’ll be helping out a friend with some baby-sitting for a week. You can contact me there.”

She hated to hedge, but people gossiped like crazy around campus. The discovery that James Bonderoff had a daughter by Helene Saldivar, and that the biological mother was a mere teaching assistant, would fan the flames to wildfire proportions.

Cora accepted the slip of paper gratefully. “I can’t believe you’d do this for me.”

“That’s why I’m in the teaching field,” Dex said.

After the freshman left, she mulled over the conversation. Was she in education because she enjoyed helping people? That hadn’t been mentioned anywhere in her parents’ expectations.

She did enjoy her time in the classroom on those occasions when Hugh was ill or at a conference. The problem was that college-level instruction required researching and writing professional papers, which she did not enjoy. Also, the lectures were often delivered to large groups of students with little or no personal contact and the grading left to an assistant.

Well, it didn’t matter. She didn’t belong in any other world, so she had better make the best of this one.

After tucking a few changes of clothes and her personal care items into a backpack, Dex opened her desk drawers and flipped through the notes she’d accumulated for her dissertation. She really ought to finish it this coming summer, which was only a few months away.

She’d chosen to write about how the structure of Shakespeare’s plays prefigured movies and television. While watching Kenneth Branagh’s movie version of Henry V, Dex had been struck by how visual it was and how well the scenes, with little adaptation, worked on the screen.

Her parents had agreed that it was an interesting subject. Her mother had sent a long letter with suggestions for how to approach the matter, and her father had urged her to publish the thesis as soon as possible to gain critical attention.

That had been a year ago. Since then, Dex hadn’t been able to muster any interest in working on the dissertation. It seemed to belong more to her parents than to her.

Oh, grow up, she told herself. As soon as she returned from Jim’s, she would buckle down and get to work.

A short time later, she locked the door and set off with her backpack. En route, she stopped at a baby store and bought a bicycle seat for Annie. It was quite an extravagance, since she’d only be able to use it for a week, but perhaps she could give it to the adoptive parents.

Maybe Annie would stay in Clair De Lune. Maybe Dex would see her from time to time, riding in this very bicycle seat, whizzing around town behind some bearded man or long-haired woman.

Unexpectedly, tears pricked her eyes. It must have been the wind.




5


AFTER HIS LUNCH with Dex on Friday, Jim Bonderoff returned to his office for two hours. In that time, he made one hundred million dollars.

That was how much his stock went up when news was announced of a faster, smaller computer chip developed by researchers at Bonderoff Visionary Technologies. The company’s other investors became similarly enriched, and he declared a bonus for employees.

Word traveled fast. De Lune University President Wilson Martin was one of the first to call with congratulations and a hint about future donations.

Of course, he didn’t ask Jim for money directly. What he said was, “I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your past generosity to our school.”

“And I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed being an honorary Ph.D.” Jim, who’d never completed college, had been thrilled to receive the degree at graduation ceremonies last June. It honored his achievements in the fields of business and technology.

“You earned it, buddy!” Wilson Martin spoke with a gung-ho attitude more reminiscent of a car salesman than of a university president. Right now, he would be sitting at his desk, brushing back the thick hair that he dyed silver to disguise the fact that he was only forty-two years old. “By the way, did you hear the tragic news about Dr. Saldivar?”

“Something about an elephant, I gather.” Jim propped up his foot and retied one of his jogging shoes. He dressed comfortably whenever he didn’t have an important meeting.

“Tragic loss,” Wilson said. “It was her dream to someday see us establish a medical school on campus.”

It hadn’t taken the man long to work his way around to his longtime dream. Jim doubted it had also been Helene’s, but obviously she provided a convenient way of bringing up the subject.

Well, Jim was a hundred million dollars richer, minus taxes. Why not make a sizable donation? He was on the verge of proposing it when something occurred to him.

He had a daughter. This money was hers, too.

Not that he intended to spoil her. He considered it foolish to give young people huge amounts of money. Still, he felt for the first time as if he were the custodian of his wealth instead of its outright owner.

“I’d be happy to look at some cost projections,” he said.

“We’ll get right on them,” the president responded. “In any case, we’re always glad to see BVT prospering. It’s good for the community.”

Jim was glad when the man rang off. Not that he disliked Wilson Martin, but Jim had other things on his mind. One in particular, and she was waiting in his outer office.

He strode across the variegated carpet and went into the adjacent room. Between the fax machines, copiers and computers sat a portable playpen.

Five women stood, leaned and knelt around the playpen, making cooing noises. Jim assumed they had wandered over to enjoy the unexpected visitor. He couldn’t even spot the tiny figure inside until he got close enough to see over the women’s shoulders.

Ignoring a pile of stuffed animals and toys, Annie sat regarding the women around her with mingled interest and uncertainty. Someone had fixed tiny yellow ribbons in her hair, one of which had fallen out.

As he approached, the little girl plopped onto her knees and crawled toward the fallen ribbon. Her audience responded with encouraging cries of, “Go for it!” and “You can do it, honey!”

Jim cleared his throat. The response was electric. The five women swiveled, straightened, or—depending on their starting position—leaped to their feet. They weren’t afraid of him, but they did seem embarrassed to be caught making goo-goo eyes at a baby.

“Congratulations, Jim!”

“Way to go on the stock market!”

“I guess I’ll be getting my new house soon!” This last remark was a reference to BVT’s stock-option program, which extended to all employees.

Four of the women melted away and returned to their offices. Only his secretary, Lulu Lee, remained. “She’s so cute! I can’t believe how lucky you are!”

He hadn’t told anyone who the mother was, only that he’d recently learned he had a daughter. People would talk, of course, but that couldn’t be helped.

“I’m not sure those yellow ribbons are such a good idea,” Jim said. “Couldn’t she swallow one?”

“Oh!” Lulu leaned in and snatched the fallen ribbon from the playpen. Then she began removing the others from Annie’s hair. “Willa from accounting put them on her.”

Jim crouched next to the playpen. “How’s it going?” he asked the baby.

“Ga ga da da.” She hoisted herself to her feet, hanging onto the rim of the playpen.

He was lost. If there had been some other task Jim meant to accomplish today, he forgot it utterly.

“Look at her!” he said. “Nine months old and she’s standing up! She must be some kind of genius.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.” Lulu gave him a teasing smile.

“You don’t seem surprised. Do they all do that?”

His secretary, who had long expressed a desire to have children if her boyfriend ever got around to popping the question, nodded sagely. “According to the books, they often stand by this age. Some children are even walking by now.”

“They must be freaks of nature,” Jim said. “If Annie isn’t doing it, it can’t be normal.”

“She’s a bright child,” Lulu said. “I wonder where she got that hair.”

It was as far as his secretary would go toward prying. Jim made a mental note never to let her catch a glimpse of Dex. Lulu’s hair was lustrously straight and black, bespeaking her Chinese heritage.

It was only natural for her to be curious about Annie’s mother, he reminded himself. “Must be a throw-back,” he said, in response to her statement. “I think my great-grandmother stuck her finger in a light socket once.”

Then he remembered that this little girl would someday inherit the company. It wasn’t too soon to prepare her for taking the reins of command. “I’m going to give her a tour of the facilities.”

“I’m sure she’ll enjoy that,” Lulu said.

Annie did. For the first five minutes, she took a keen interest in all the blinking computers and admiring employees.

Jim’s tale of how he’d started the company in a garage, moved to a leased plant and finally built this facility quickly bored the baby. She yawned. Then she drooped against his shoulder.

“Nap time,” said one of the women engineers.

Jim had forgotten that babies needed naps. No wonder this one was exhausted. She’d had a long day, and it wasn’t even five o’clock yet.

He took her out to his covered parking spot. This afternoon, he’d brought the European sedan with an infant seat installed in the back. Strapping a sleepy baby into it turned out to be a challenge, but he was getting used to manipulating her tiny limbs.

When his nose brushed her cheek, he discovered that she smelled like Dex and was startled to realize he missed the woman. Missed her mentally and physically.

Thinking about her was dangerous. For safety, Jim tried to focus on Nancy.

As always, the image of his calm, self-possessed pal soothed him. After his mother died of cancer when he was fourteen, she’d been the friend he turned to for comfort and advice while his father worked long hours selling insurance.

In the month following his rendezvous with Dex, Jim had felt restless and off-center. That was why he’d flown to Washington and proposed to Nancy. It had been, he told himself, a wise step toward his chosen future, and the fulfillment of long-cherished plans.

He wished she had accepted immediately. Instead, she’d murmured that things were up in the air at her university and that her career was at a turning point. Jim hadn’t wanted to press her, but for some reason, the knowledge that Dex would be living in his household made him more anxious than ever to set a wedding date.

Jim pulled the car out of the parking lot and glanced at Annie. She was dozing peacefully in the back seat as he halted for a red light. Impulsively, he dialed Nancy’s number on the car phone. It was about eight o’clock in D.C., so she ought to be home.

“Hi, this is Nancy,” purred her familiar voice. The sound was so smooth that he expected her to add that he should leave a message after the beep, but she didn’t.

“Are you there?” Jim said into the hands-free speaker. “In person, I mean?”

“Jim?” Nancy said. “It’s great to hear from you. What’s up?”

He’d last called her about a month ago. She’d told him how well her parents were doing and had brought him current on the activities of her six younger siblings.

The topic of his proposal hadn’t come up. Jim didn’t want to broach it too abruptly this time, either, nor did he wish to brag about his stock coup. There was, however, other news he needed to tell her. “I wanted to let you know that I have a baby.”

The silence lasted until the light turned green. Then she said, “A baby?”

As he accelerated north on Mercury Lane, he explained about Helene Saldivar. There seemed no point in mentioning Dex, so he didn’t.

When he was done, Nancy said, “A baby. Well, that is a surprise.”

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked. “I know you spent a lot of time taking care of your younger brothers and sisters, but you like kids, right?”

“Of course.” Nancy sounded as if she were thinking things over. “You know, my current research involves babies.”

“What sort of research?”

“I’m investigating how infants acquire language,” she said.

“Annie says ‘da da’ quite clearly,” he boasted as he drove through the gates of Villa Bonderoff.

“Specifically, I’m investigating how some babies acquire multiple languages. In any case, she’s there and I’m here, so it’s irrelevant,” Nancy said briskly.

“How’s it going with your grant? You mentioned something about problems.”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” She always changed the subject if there were any possibility he might make a donation to benefit her. Nancy never coveted his money, even though it was thanks to her encouragement that he’d taken the first steps toward success.

She was a great friend and a beautiful woman. Even in high school, she’d had an air of sophistication, and she was always coolly in control of herself.

He wished they were already married. He wished they’d been married for years. Then he wouldn’t have to fight these confusing, maddening, tantalizing images of Dex, naked and eager, that kept sneaking into his mind.

He reached the main parking area in front of his garages. “I’ve got to go, Nancy. Just wondered if you’d given any more thought to our future.”

“Lots of it,” she said. “If things work out the way I plan, I should have everything settled within a week. We’ll talk again.”

The word settled could be taken in either of several ways. Would she settle matters in his favor or settle permanently somewhere else? “What do you mean by—”

“I have to run. Duty calls. Take care!”

“You, too.” After he clicked off, it occurred to Jim that since he’d called Nancy at her apartment, she wasn’t likely to have any test babies lying around needing attention. Had she deliberately cut off the conversation?

He lost his train of thought when he noticed the bicycle parked by the curving stone staircase. And here came Dex, trotting down from the rock garden above.

Leaves and blossoms—lavender, yellow, white—clung to her brown hair, and a frothy pink sweater hugged her curvaceous body above clinging jeans. With her eyes alight, she was the spirit of springtime.

Jim got out and stood in the driveway, feeling like a teenager again. Pure raw lust rampaged through him.

“Where’s Annie?” Without waiting for a response, Dex flung open the car’s back door and crawled in. Her rear end waggled invitingly as she fumbled with the snaps and straps and then, after a dazzling gymnastic maneuver, she emerged with the baby.

Jim dragged himself back to reality. He was supposed to be the suave, urbane host, not some overgrown adolescent tripping over his tongue.

“Did Rocky show you to a guest room?” he asked. “I hope it’s big enough.” There were four bedrooms on the second floor, in addition to the master suite.

“It’s fine,” Dex said as she carried the cooing baby toward the house. “By the way, Grace and Rocky are fighting again. You might want to stop them before they rupture something.”

“Now you tell me.” Jim broke into a lope.

Disputes were nothing new in his household, but they hadn’t turned violent in a long time. Not since the first few days after Grace joined the household, when she’d insisted that Rocky cook hash and rock-hard biscuits the way she liked them. He’d not only refused but insulted her taste buds.

The two of them had known each other distantly in the service, but not until they were both working for Jim had they found themselves cheek by jowl. Each wanted to be top dog, and it had taken a while for them to learn to compromise.

Jim still winced at the memory of Rocky’s black eye and Grace’s limping from their early clashes. After a few painful days, they’d come to an agreement. Grace had relinquished mess food in exchange for the right to maintain such Marine traditions as sounding reveille at six in the morning. and hoisting the flag at eight.

Jim raced through the garden room and veered down the hallway into the kitchen. Cooking smells wafted from the stove, but he saw the burners had been turned off.

Wrestler-type grunts emanated from deep within the house. Heading to his left, Jim passed the utility room and halted in the doorway of the den.

Light streaming through French doors silhouetted the hulking shapes of his two servants. Grace, the smaller of the two but by no means the weaker, had hoisted Rocky onto her shoulders and was twirling him around. Both of them groaned like hogs at feeding time.

“He gets seasick, you know,” Jim said.

The only response was a couple more grunts. He interpreted them as meaning, “What kind of Marine gets seasick?”

“It only points out how dedicated he was,” he continued. “By the way, what’s this fight about, anyway?”

Grace stopped whirling and studied Jim blearily. It was the first time he’d seen the usually spotless maid in such a disheveled condition. Her determination to stick to Marine traditions had led her to insist on wearing a uniform in domestic service, too, although she’d bypassed camouflage for an outfit more consistent with her new duties. Usually she starched and ironed every stitch, right down, he sometimes suspected, to her underwear.

Now, however, her apron was ripped and flopping down at one side, she had a run in her stockings and the frilly white serving cap hung rakishly over her forehead.

“He told me to stick my can of disinfectant where the sun never shines,” she growled.

Rocky, balanced horizontally on Grace’s shoulders, made a low, wheezing sound. Jim interpreted it to mean, “But, chief, the whole house reeks!”

“Yes, I can smell it,” he said, approaching them. “Grace, it isn’t necessary to sterilize the house. Babies aren’t that delicate. Put Rocky down, would you?”

Grimacing, she lowered the butler to his feet. His face, Jim saw, had gone deathly pale.

With a low moan, the butler stumbled across the room and out through the French doors. Jim could hear him puking into the bushes.

“You wash that down with the hose!” Grace yelled. “No fair sticking Kip with your mess! He’s weird enough already.” Assuming a level tone, she addressed Jim. “Do you know, ever since Kip banged his head in that helicopter crash, he thinks letters and numbers have colors?”

“He’s a good gardener,” Jim said. “Now listen, you and Rocky have got to work things out.”

“Just let me pound him a little more,” said Grace. “He’ll come around.”

“That isn’t the way it’s done in civilian life.” Before he could continue, Jim’s spine tingled, and he realized that Dex was standing behind him.

Glancing back, he drank in the appearance of the two bristle-haired females, their lively faces so much alike. He hated to admit it, but the more time he spent around his daughter, the more resemblance he saw to her mother.

Maybe fifty percent, he was willing to concede. At maximum.

Annie beamed at Grace and clapped her hands. “More!” she said.

The room went utterly still. Even Rocky, staggering in through the double doors, paused in mid-stride.

“That was her first word!” Dex crowed. “Wasn’t it? Did she say anything today while I was gone?”

“Just ga ga da da,” said Jim.

“Ba ba,” replied Annie, as if they were carrying on a conversation.

Rocky’s face glowed like a Christmas candle. Grace blinked several times rapidly.

As far as Jim was concerned, the moment was worth more than a hundred million dollars.




6


A WARM GLOW enveloped Dex. Annie’s first word!

True, she’d apparently been requesting more violence, which wasn’t desirable, but she’d spoken. The person inside the cute little shape had communicated directly with them.

It was only a small step to more words, then short sentences. Soon a torrent of speech would spew forth insight into her daughter’s mind and emerging personality.

It’s a miracle.

Dex hugged the baby. How could she give her up?

Her throat clogged as she regarded the three faces watching her or, rather, watching Annie. Rocky’s, pale but delighted. Grace’s, sternly protective. And Jim’s, the handsome features transformed by tenderness.

Was he right? Did their daughter belong here rather than with some adoptive family?

But if Annie were here, Dex wouldn’t be able to stay away. She’d be underfoot, watching from close by as Jim married and as his new wife, no doubt a shining example of all that was nurturing, gave Annie the love and support that Dex couldn’t.

It would break her heart. Dex yearned to be that perfect woman, but she didn’t have it in her. Her fumbling attempts might fool other adults, but they would leave Annie’s needs unmet. And Jim’s, too.

Dex knew even less about relationships than about mothering. None of her boyfriends had lasted long, for reasons that eluded her.

In addition to not understanding men, she didn’t understand herself. She didn’t know, for instance, why Jim had scared her so much on their terrific night together that she’d lied to him about moving away.

She also didn’t understand why he’d forgotten her so quickly and proposed to someone else. It was all too confusing, a swamp into which she would sink forever if she weren’t careful.

Life for Dex was safest alone. And Annie would be safest with a new family. No matter how perfect Jim’s bride-to-be was, surely she would resent being forced to raise another woman’s child.

“I’ll keep a journal about her first words,” Dex said. “So her adoptive parents will have a record of them.”

“Adoptive parents?” said Grace.

“Dex and I disagree on the subject,” Jim told her. He gave no hint that it was out of place for a maid to question her employer’s child-rearing plans.

“They could live here,” Rocky suggested. “It’s big enough.”

“Live here?” Grace echoed in amazement. “What, a pair of adoptive parents move into the baby’s father’s mansion? You’ve been watching too many daytime talk shows!”

“I never watch daytime talk shows,” Rocky replied stiffly. “And I refuse to be taunted into another fight.”

“Because you’d lose,” said Grace.

Jim held up his hands. “Rocky, how’s dinner coming along? Grace, I believe you’ve got liberty call.”

The maid stood her ground for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you, sir. See you at Colors on Monday, if not before.”

“Good night, Grace.”

Dex watched the maid depart through the French doors. After she was gone, Rocky headed for the kitchen.

“What’s liberty call?” Dex shifted the baby onto her hip.

“Free time. It means she’s off duty,” Jim explained.

“And what’s Colors?”

“That’s when we raise the flag. Eight a.m. on weekdays,” he said.

Dex wondered how the future Mrs. Bonderoff would enjoy living on a Marine base. On the other hand, maybe the future Mrs. Bonderoff was a Marine.

“Make yourself comfortable. Dinner should be ready soon.” Jim gestured toward a couch.

“Thanks.” Dex placed Annie on the floor and sat down. The baby crawled to a bookcase and examined the book spines.

“I think you mentioned that you’re a doctoral candidate?” Jim relaxed into an armchair.

“Working on my dissertation,” she said.

“Feel free to bring your materials here,” he said. “I’ve got several computers in the house. You’re welcome to use one.”

“I’m working on my dissertation slowly,” she clarified.

Annie crawled toward the open French doors. Outside, a man’s slim figure materialized, closed the doors and vanished. Dex couldn’t see his features clearly, but got the impression of a sensitive mouth and large, sad eyes. “Who’s that?”

“Kip, the gardener,” Jim said. “He used to be full of bravado, a real rock-’em-sock-’em type. Then he nearly died in a helicopter accident. The brain injuries changed his personality.”

“How come your whole staff is Marines?” Dex asked.

“They’re my buddies.” Leaning back, Jim laced his fingers behind his head. “I was a real rabble-rouser when I got out of high school. Surfing wasn’t enough of an adventure for me, so I enlisted.”

“You postponed college?” Dex asked.

“Not exactly. I took some courses while I was in the service, in the computer field, but I never got a degree,” Jim said. “Not unless you count my honorary Ph.D.”

Dex supposed that wasn’t unusual in his field. She’d heard that Bill Gates had dropped out of Harvard. “So when you left the service, your friends came with you?”

“Not right away,” Jim said. “I mustered out ten years ago, when I was twenty-four. When I was twenty-eight, Rocky lost a leg in an amphibious assault. He wasn’t adjusting well to civilian life, so a year later, when I was planning to build this house, I asked if he would manage it for me.”

Come to think of it, Rocky did have a slight limp. No wonder Grace kept besting him.

“What about Grace?” she asked.

“She left the service four years ago, suffering from clinical depression,” Jim said. “It’s a chemical disorder. Under my employee health plan, she got the right treatment, and now she’s fine.”

“How long has Kip been here?”

“He came right after Grace,” Jim said. “His doctors thought gardening would provide a stress-free environment, and it seems to be working. I think he’s lonely, though.”

It was an unusual household. Dex approved of Jim’s loyalty to his friends, but she wasn’t certain how this eccentric crew might affect Annie. She wanted her daughter to have the perfect home.

Rocky appeared in the doorway. “Dinner is served,” he announced.

Dex and Jim went into the formal dining room. In one corner, a playpen filled with toys awaited Annie, and she slipped happily into place.

The long table was set with white linen, bone china and silver service. In the center, candles had been lit. Serving dishes lined a sideboard, offering T-bone steaks, glazed carrots, parsleyed potatoes and Caesar salad.

“Great!” Dex said. “Rocky, you’re a gem.”

The large man blushed. “I like cooking.”

Dex was about to ask who the third place setting was for when Rocky helped himself to a plate and got into line first. Obviously, he was in the habit of dining with Jim.

“What about Kip and Grace?” she asked, falling into place behind him.

“Kip’s too shy to eat in company.” Jim stood close behind her. Dex could feel his warmth radiating against her bottom, and recalled that that had been one of the positions they’d experimented with during their night together. “Grace prefers canned beans and fruit to Rocky’s cooking, or so she claims.”

“Perverse woman,” grumbled the butler as he piled potatoes alongside his steak. “When she wasn’t barking orders at the troops, she used to be quiet and polite. I thought that was her real personality, and it suited me fine. I didn’t know she was depressed.”

“It’s lucky Jim came along,” Dex said. “She must have felt miserable.”

“I wish she was still depressed,” Rocky grumbled. “She didn’t give me so much trouble.”

Jim sat at the head of the table, with Rocky and Dex on either side. As the meal passed in general conversation, she was intrigued to hear that Jim’s stock had shot through the roof, thanks to some new computer chip.

What was the man going to do with even more money? Buy a few new cars, build another mansion, plan the most fabulous wedding of the decade?

She didn’t envy his bride. Dex hated pomp and ceremony. When she got married, she wanted a quiet service with friends and family.

What was she thinking? Of course she envied his bride. Not because Dex wanted to marry Jim, but because she wished she were the type of woman who could.

Being this close to him was agony. She kept wanting to touch his closely shaved cheeks and rumple his sun-streaked hair.

And she kept remembering how much she’d wanted to make love to him on a thick, soft carpet piled with cushions. She could think of so many creative positions, but her carpet was too short and scratchy.

He’d suggested they go to his house and mentioned that he had the ideal carpet in his bedroom. Under no circumstances, she told herself now, would she ever enter that bedroom.

“Looks like Annie’s ready for bed,” Jim said.

Dex gave a little jump. “Excuse me?”

“The baby’s yawning,” said Rocky. “I can take her upstairs.”

“No, thank you.” Dex wanted to enjoy every minute of the scant time she had with her daughter.

“We’ll take care of her,” Jim told the butler. “Go relax.”

“I am relaxed.” He eyed the child wistfully. “My youngest sister has a baby not much older than Annie. She should sleep on her back, you know, without a pillow.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

After he left, Dex said, “You mentioned that Kip is lonely. I think Rocky is, too.”

“He’d like to have a family of his own,” Jim said. “He got the idea, when he lost his leg, that women wouldn’t be interested in him. I can’t talk him into going to a singles mixer or a dating service. He’s sure he’d be a complete failure.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dex said.

“I think so, too.” Jim scooped up his daughter from the playpen and lifted her to his shoulder. The movement was surprisingly natural, considering that he’d had little experience with babies until this afternoon.

He was a born father, Dex thought with a twinge of guilt as she followed the pair out of the dining room and up a central curving staircase. But Annie needed a mother, too. A real mother who would love her, not merely tolerate her.

Dex needed to know more about Jim’s almost-fiancée. She supposed she could ask him some discreet questions, but it hurt too much to think about the woman.

At the top of the stairs, they emerged into a central court around which opened a number of doors. Dex felt as if she were in a hotel.

Jim headed for the door next to Dex’s. Rocky had pointed it out earlier as Annie’s room, but she hadn’t gone in.

Now she followed the millionaire into an airy chamber with pale yellow flowered wallpaper, canary-and-tan stripes around the upper moldings and a lacy canopy bed. A crib, which must have been delivered that afternoon, stood against the near wall, across from a rocking chair.

At the far end of the room, Dex could see the twilit sky through glass doors. Beyond them lay a rounded balcony edged by a wrought-iron railing.

“This looks as if it had been deliberately decorated for a little girl,” she said.

“It was.” Jim laid Annie on a changing table. “I’ve always wanted children. Now, how do you work this diaper thing?”

Dex showed him. Every time their hands touched, she had to fight down rebellious fantasies.

She imagined that the carpet in his room was tan, as in here. The pile felt thick beneath her feet. If only the two of them could sink into it, could feel it against their skin.

Nearby, Jim’s breathing sped up. Was he thinking the same thing?

That night at the faculty party, they’d found themselves operating on the same wavelength. Noticing the brightness of the stars at the same time. Leaning toward each other as if they’d planned it. Dancing as if they were a team.

It was amazing, considering how different they were. And how incompatible.

I don’t even know what I’m doing here, Dex thought, and inched away. She didn’t belong with a sleekly sophisticated man who made millions in the wink of an eye, or in a mansion that might have been designed for a glittery home tour.

Her parents were bookish people, their house efficiently small and filled with well-organized paper clutter. They couldn’t understand why anyone would waste time on appearances. They weren’t impressed by designer labels or by the nouveau-riche club crowd in their Florida town, either.

Their ideal woman was Dex’s sister, Brianna. The editor of a literary magazine, she was married to an investigative journalist and lived in a small apartment in New York’s SoHo district. They lacked much money and didn’t want kids, but they were the darlings of the intellectual set.

“How’s this?” Jim hoisted their daughter aloft. A pink nightgown covered her neatly diapered body to her evident pleasure.

“Beautiful.” Dex inhaled the scent of baby powder and innocence.

Jim placed Annie into the crib on her back, as Rocky had instructed. The only jarring note was the quilt, which had a geometric design worked in black, purple and white. “Dr. Saldivar’s taste in baby decor was a bit different from mine,” he said, noticing her reaction. “I’ll have Grace pick up something more appropriate tomorrow.”

“There’s no sense investing a lot of money,” Dex told him. “Annie isn’t staying.”

They faced each other from opposite ends of the crib. She could feel Jim seeking the right words, the right tone to change her mind.

“Why are you so determined to put her up for adoption?” Apparently he’d decided on the direct approach.

Because if I can’t be her mother, I never want to see her again. It would break my heart.

She didn’t say so, because she didn’t expect Jim to kowtow to her feelings. He was the most powerful person in this town, and she was, if anything, the most powerless.

Dex struggled to find a more rational reason for her position. In what she hoped was a logical tone, she said, “You’ve got to see how hard it will be for her when people find out about her background. The gossip. The teasing.”

“No one has to know her background,” Jim said.

“The town gossips will want to know who the mother is. And plenty of people have seen Annie with Dr. Saldivar over the last nine months,” Dex said. “Whether they learn the truth or imagine some affair between you and the good doctor, it’ll still be a mess.”

“People may talk,” he conceded. “But…” Instead of completing his thought, he said, “Come here. I want to show you something.” Jim walked to the glass doors, unlatched the slide lock from overhead and opened them. Cautiously, Dex followed him onto the small balcony and into a cooling breeze.

Below them spread the town of Clair De Lune. From this height, she could see the triangular Bonderoff Visionary Technologies plant on the left and beyond a sprawl of high ground to her right, the campus of De Lune University.

Directly ahead, sloping downward toward the distant freeway, lay the town itself. She scanned tree-shrouded neighborhoods, shops, city hall, even the twelve-storey structure where she and Jim had met Annie this afternoon.

“It’s quite a view,” she admitted.

“The view is as much symbolic as it is literal,” Jim said. “I don’t mean to brag, but in a lot of ways I control this town. The mayor consults me about ordinances that would affect businesses. The Chamber of Commerce uses my name to encourage new industries to come to town.”

None of this was news to Dex. “So?”

“Exactly how hard do you think people are going to ride my daughter?” Jim asked.

He had a point, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Kids can be cruel,” Dex said. “And I don’t want her spoiled, either.”

“You’re making excuses. There’s some other reason you want her to be adopted.”

He was too perceptive, she thought with a flare of alarm. She dreaded having Jim see how vulnerable she was, how much she yearned for things she wasn’t emotionally capable of handling.

“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mother,” she said as casually as she could. “Lots of women aren’t.”

“But I’m cut out to be a father,” he said.

“It isn’t enough!”

“You want to keep me at arm’s length because we spent a night together, don’t you?” he pressed. “If I were a total stranger with no memories attached, you wouldn’t be so opposed to my keeping her, would you?”

Although she supposed that did make a difference, it wasn’t the real problem. “I don’t hold anything against you,” Dex said.

“There’s no reason you should,” Jim reminded her. “You’re the one who said you were going away.”

“We aren’t suited to each other,” she said. “I accept that.”

“So do I.”

“At least we agree on something.”

He touched her shoulder. Prickles of fire ran across her skin. “Dex, whatever I did to annoy you, please forgive me. Our daughter’s future is too important to throw away.”

She lowered her face, blinking back an unexpected sheen of moisture. “There’s more to happiness than a fancy house and a view from the balcony. There’s love and understanding and emotional support.”

“And I’m going to give them to her,” Jim said.

But if she’s like me, she’ll know from the start that she doesn’t belong here.

Dex had to trust her instincts. This house, and this man, filled her with such panic that she couldn’t bear to leave her baby here. “Whether you agree or not, Annie’s a miniature version of me. Anyone can see it,” she said. “She won’t fit in. And the other kids’ digs and snubs will hurt more than you’ll ever know.”

“Annie’s half me,” Jim said quietly. “She will fit in. She’ll love it here. Please listen…”

His grip on Dex’s shoulder tightened just as she swung around to go inside. The contact threw her off balance, and she stumbled against him.

Instinctively, Dex threw up her hands and braced herself against his chest. She’d forgotten how clearly defined his muscles were, how solid he was and how secure she felt in his grasp, as if nothing could uproot her.

Jim’s arms wrapped around her, and her chin lifted instinctively. His mouth closed over hers, tasting of wine and sultry longing.

Dex indulged herself by cupping his cheek in her palm and then ruffling his hair. Jim guided her inside the house, away from public view, then kissed her more deeply.

The sudden cessation of wind and the flick of his tongue sent heat flooding through her. Pulled tightly against him, Dex discovered that he was completely aroused and experienced the same rush of abandon as on the night of the party.

Feeling his hand move beneath her sweater and touch her bare waist, she ached for him to reach her breasts. His hard, fast breathing matched her own. Dex knew they ought to stop. But not yet.

A happy gurgling caught her attention. The baby! She glanced over and saw Annie standing in her crib, watching them.

“More,” said the baby.

Dex didn’t know whether to laugh or blush. Jim burst into a deep chuckle. “She’s got that right,” he said.

“No.” With a sigh, she moved away. “We can’t do that. You’re practically a married man.”

“I’m not even engaged,” Jim said. “But even though Nancy hasn’t made a decision yet, I do owe her my loyalty.”

She was glad to hear that, despite being the town’s best-known playboy, he had scruples. “In any case,” Dex added for good measure, “we both agree that we’re incompatible.”

“Not in bed,” he pointed out.

“We already have one child,” she said. “Isn’t that enough trouble for one relationship?”

Besides, now that she was regarding this tall, strong-featured man from a slight distance, she remembered all the reasons he intimidated her. And all the reasons she had no intention of showing it.

“I agree, the situation’s complicated.” Jim ran one hand through his hair. “You’re right, I suppose. We need to keep things platonic.”

Although he didn’t look happy about it, he withdrew. Dex stood motionless until she heard the door to the master bedroom close.

“Da da,” said Annie conversationally.

Dex scooped the baby from the crib and sat in the rocking chair, cradling her daughter. She couldn’t believe she’d kissed Jim Bonderoff. If Annie hadn’t interrupted, they might have…

She rocked slowly. Why did she nearly lose control around the man? No doubt he had that effect on a lot of women. She could understand why, but that was no excuse for her own weakness.

It wouldn’t happen again. At least, she didn’t think so.

The chair moved smoothly, lulling both the baby and Dex. She discovered she was crooning a lullaby. She couldn’t identify the song at first, until she came to the chorus. “Hi Lili, Hi Lo.”

It was the theme from an old Leslie Caron movie, Lili. When she was a child, Dex had watched it on TV with her mother, who mentioned having seen it years earlier.

The theme song had sounded familiar then, and it had burst forth while Dex was rocking her baby. There was only one possible explanation. Her own mother must have sung it to her as a child.

How odd. Sarah Fenton wasn’t the sort of woman one pictured singing to a baby. She wore her frizzy hair cut so short it was almost a buzz cut, and smiled only fleetingly. Her tastes in entertainment ran to Wagner operas and Russian ballet, and whatever tenderness she’d shown had vanished by her children’s teen years.

Dex rocked the baby some more and sang some more and wished that, unlike her mother, she could nourish these gentle feelings forever. But history had a way of repeating itself.





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