by Babe Hayes
Paeton turned to confront Fred. “Fred, do you know how weird it is to have your baby, but not to have your baby? I take care of this child as if it’s mine. I talk to it. I call it Kelsey many times. And I give him all the love I have for Kelsey. But, well, there really aren’t any other words for it besides “weird.” I have to find that jerk.”
“But you’ll miss your first and most important meeting with Christian. Besides, Kaselman’s in Boston, not New York. You haven’t an inkling where he’s staying. And you don’t know where his next assignment is. Christ, he may be flying out here next!”
“Please cover for me, Fred. I’m going back to the East Coast. I’ll start with his office in New York. At least his secretary will know where to find him. I have to start somewhere. I’m leaving tomorrow morning. Somehow I’ll meet him. We’ll make the switch.” She choked back a cry. “We have to! And soon, Fred. I don’t how much longer I can take this.”
Paeton inhaled deeply, marched unsteadily over to Fred, and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be back when I get back. Talk to Christian. Please? Make something up. Tell him the truth if you have to. He stands to lose too if the media creeps get a whiff of this.”
“But making up stories is your job, not mine!” Fred’s exasperation carried a sarcastic barb.
“Fred, please, I need your support, not your berating.” She took both his hands in hers. “I’m going to get my baby. Do you know what that means, Fred? Do whatever you want to do or don’t want to do. If it wouldn’t be so hard on the children, I’d take a red-eye tonight. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Fred. Please understand.” She gave him another brotherly kiss. “Madison. Pack your things. We’re going to New York tomorrow morning.”
Paeton tried to convince herself that tomorrow would bring her baby back to her. That the dread of public humiliation would be extinguished.
A rush of adrenaline swept through her as she considered what was at stake: her newly achieved fame and inevitable fortune, her screenplay-writing career, her reputation as a mother.
All this could be lost. After years of struggling and building and hoping. In one momentary, foolish lapse of concentration, in one innocent surrender to a glorious fantasy, could lay her complete destruction.
#
Steve focused on the infant on his desk. He studied her angelic face. He put out his hand, and the baby carefully curled her tiny fingers around one of his. He brought his face very close to hers. “So your mama’s a romance writer, huh, darlin’? And apparently a pretty good one too—New York Times best-seller list. Not too bad for a bewitching mom. But Sophia garbled her phone number. And there’s no way I can reach her publisher at this time of night, sweetheart. Sorry, kid. I’d like to talk to her right now as much as you probably would.” He studied her sweet face more intently. “Mm, you are a beautiful little thing, baby. Of course, you’d have to be—you look exactly like—my son.” Steve laughed. “You know what I was going to say? I was going to say you look just like your mother! Your mother is an—an interesting person. You know that? You seem to like the way I’ve taken care of you. Do you think your mother would like it if I—”
He turned from the child. “Watch it, Steve! You haven’t even met the woman.”
He propped his feet on his desk. He noticed he had become more relaxed in the past several minutes. Things seemed workable now, even though his eye-twitching persisted. He would take tonight’s red-eye to L.A. Call Paeton’s publisher in the morning. Find out where she was staying and meet her and make the switch. Maybe they could even go out for a drink and have a good laugh over the whole botch-up.
Steve liked knowing that Paeton was widowed. Not that he wished anyone dead. He certainly had nothing to do with her husband’s passing.
Then he had a thought to call some of the major hotels in L.A. No, the hell with it! Wild goose chase!
He sat up. “Come on, baby, let’s go see the mom with the killer mouth.” He took out his smart phone phone, tapped the airline ticket app, and like magic, he and this baby were booked for the next flight to Los Angeles. The twitch continued to inform him of his intensity. He was painfully aware that his intense nature prompted him to act impulsively at times. Such as right now, jumping on the next flight to L.A. Steve had been burned many times by listening to this impulsive side.
Of course, he did have his rational side. Right now it was counseling him to wait until the following morning to do anything. Tomorrow he could call her publisher, locate her, and plan an intelligent method of meeting her.
He looked at the baby girl. He drummed his fingers for a few seconds on the desk.
Then he stood up sharply. He grabbed the handle of the travelseat and said, “Too late. Right, baby? I’ve already booked us to L.A.”
The child gurgled back.
“I see you agree with me. Okay. Let’s go.” He strode out the door.
Impulsive was Steve Kaselman. He only hoped this wasn’t one of those times when he should have listened to his rational side.
Chapter 5
Steve rubbed his bloodshot eyes before he changed his watch to Pacific Daylight Time. He spun the hands backward to six a.m. A desk clerk approached him as he stood at the registration counter of the Beverly Hills Arms. “May I help you, sir?”
Steve pulled out a credit card. “Yes, I’d like a suite for a couple of days. And could you put a crib in one of the bedrooms for me, please?” He nodded toward the travelseat resting on the counter.
“Of course, Mr. Kaselman. That would be suite five fifteen. Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you. That’s fine.” Of course, the “anything else” would be that Paeton McPhilomy was staying at the Beverly Hills Arms. But that was impossible. She gave Sophia an L.A. area code. The one for Beverly Hills was different.
Wait a minute. Beverly Hills is right next to L.A. All the hotshot people stay at the Arms—including me, of course. What the hell! Steve decided to give it a shot. “Well, yes, there is one thing. You wouldn’t have a Paeton McPhilomy staying here, would you?”
The clerk checked the register. “Yes, we do. Ms. McPhilomy is one of our guests.”
“Good god, you mean it? The romance-book writer?”
“I’m not aware of that aspect of her, sir. But there is a Ms. Paeton McPhilomy staying with us.”
“What suite is she in?” Steve blurted out.
“I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to give you that information, Mr. Kaselman. But you can leave a message for her that I will make sure is posted on her phone.”
Steve was almost jumping up and down. “Yes! Yes! I understand. Please tell her Steve Kaselman is in suite five fifteen and would like to see her as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir. I will activate the message light on her phone and give her this message when she calls. Is there anything else, sir?”
Steve was feeling wonderful. Life was good. The nightmare was almost over. This time he had guessed right! “Uh, no. I guess that’s it.” He took the baby off the counter, then remembered his luggage at the door. “Wait a minute. Can you get someone to help me with my bags?”
“Certainly, Mr. Kaselman.”
The desk clerk signaled a bellman by the front door. The bellman came over carrying Steve’s golf bag and a small suitcase. Steve followed him to the elevator, where an elderly woman with a walker stood waiting. The elevator opened, and Steve noticed the woman needed someone to hold the elevator door and her at the same time. He set the travelseat down outside the elevator and helped the woman into the car, going in with her. The bellman followed them. Steve found himself behind the woman, still supporting her somewhat.
The woman looked up at Steve. “Why, thank you, young man.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.” He turned to the bellman, pointed to the childseat, and said, “Could you get the baby for me? I’m kind of needed here.”
The bellman set the bags down and retrieved the infant. The elevator door closed, and Steve made his way to his suite wit
h a warm heart, secure in the feeling that the most potentially disastrous event in his life was about to come to a painless and, if luck would have it, enjoyable end.
But something in the air told Steve that this dilemma was too huge to end this easily!
#
Paeton never saw the telephone message light in her hotel bedroom ignite into a pleading bright red. She had closed her door and was on her way out of her hotel suite. She hurried herself and Madison into the elevator while the infant bumped alongside in his travelseat. She had decided all the luggage she would need would be her trusty carryall. Everything else she might need was at her New York apartment.
She had to be in the hotel lobby by six a.m. for the airport limo to be able to catch her seven-thirty flight to New York. As she and Madison were emerging from the elevator, out of the corner of her eye Paeton thought she saw a bellman picking up a baby in a familiar Zoo Kingdom travelseat from Bloomingdale’s.
She stopped abruptly, her breath lodged in her throat. She spun her head around, but by the time she focused to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, the elevator doors had closed.
She felt her pulse in her ears. She grabbed Madison by the hand and picked up her pace to the limo.
Heaven help me! Now I’m hallucinating! Will this ordeal ever be over?
#
Steve turned on TV the moment the bellman left the room. Nothing about the baby mix-up was on the six o’clock morning news. Paeton McPhilomy had waited too, and now it would pay off for both of them.
He could envision the activated red message light next to her bed. He smiled devilishly to himself. He also realized he could envision Paeton in bed next to the light. Steve loved tall, dark women. Blonds were not his first choice. And Steve had a thing about women’s mouths. He always noticed the contour, the movement, the color. The way her mouth moved when a woman was talking or smiling, or for that matter, crying. The mouth was such a special place, such an intimate place. A mouth could kiss. A mouth could whisper. A mouth could drive him crazy. And Paeton McPhilomy had the mouth of all women’s mouths!
He shuddered at the thought of that sensuous mouth and what it could do to him.
A sweet noise from the infant shut down his reverie. He wished Paeton would roll over and see the message light. But it was only six o’clock. She was probably as exhausted as he was from the events of the previous day. She would wake up in a couple of hours and call him. God, he couldn’t wait to hear her voice! He imagined she must have a damn sexy voice emanating from that damn sexy mouth.
He chortled a little. What is it with me and this woman? She writes romance books. She’s probably some daffy, dreamy, jock-hating female. And besides that, she’s probably got the men waiting in line with those looks.
He went into one of the bedrooms and looked down at the baby girl sleeping peacefully in the crib. Wait a damn minute, Kaselman, you’re no slouch in the looks department!. I mean— He laughed out loud again. He walked over to a mirror. But god, right now you look like hell! “You better get some sleep.” he said out loud, rather startling himself. Ever since he had been living twenty-four hours a day with an infant and talking to it even though it couldn’t answer, he would find himself randomly talking out loud as well. Did this mean he was getting old and senile? Christ, he only recently turned forty!
He moved to the other bedroom and sat on the bed to slip off his shoes. He punched the pillow under the bedspread and lay back. He could feel a wonderful sleep coming on. He knew the next sound he would hear after his much-needed sleep would be Paeton McPhilomy’s phone call, coming from somewhere in the same hotel. God, this bed felt good!
Unfortunately, Steve would find that the next phone call he received would greatly compound his present problems.
#
The plane reached cruising altitude on its way to New York. The woman across the aisle kept giving Paeton sideways glances. She would read her novel, then sneak a peek at Paeton. She was fiftyish and both her body and diamond earrings were overweight. Paeton sat with boy baby in his travelseat and blanket. She had bought him a new, culturally acceptable, male-only outfit at the hotel gift shop. The sleeper Paeton had “kidnapped” him in needed a rest. Besides, Paeton thought it was the least she could do for a macho male, which Steve Kaselman must be. He would be mortified to find his man-child dressed like a girl in public.
Paeton startled herself. Why was she being so nice to this jock who wouldn’t even return her call?
Probably because no male had ever affected her quite the way Steve “Jock” Kaselman had. She couldn’t help smiling when she thought about him. As big a jerk as he must be. She rolled him around as a character in a book, then drew a sketch of him in her mind: Steve Kaselman hadn’t been shortchanged in the looks department. Except for his nose, he was the Prince Charming from any fairy tale with dragons and princesses. He stood a little over six two, had too much blond hair, and was blessed with a Burt Lancaster jaw. Fortunately, his broken nose saved him from perfection, lifting him from children’s stories into the real world. But it was Steve’s eyes that could reach down inside a woman’s soul and unveil dark, secret desires, previously shrouded, even from herself. Deep within those two blue demons crackled the promise of supreme rapture with no prospect of mercy.
She reflected on her mental doodling. Hmmm. Not bad, Paeton. Mmm! She felt a pleasant surge of warmth in one of her secret places. She smiled thinking that, should she ever use Steve Kaselman as a character in one of her novels, she could hardly stand by the disclaimer that “All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.”
“Mommy, are we almost there?”
Madison’s inevitable question brought Paeton out of her mind jottings. She tried to be patient. This whole situation was difficult for a six-year-old. “No, sweetheart, we have quite a ride left. Would you like a snack?”
“No, thanks. I’m just tired of riding on airplanes. After we get to New York, do we have to go back to Los Angeles?”
“Yes, honey, we do.” She bent down and kissed Madison. Paeton’s treatment of her children since that momentous bump nurtured a guilt that increased by the hour. She talked in hushed tones to Madison. “I’m sorry this is so crazy, Maddy. But when we get Kelsey back, everything will be normal again. We won’t have to ride on airplanes so much. You are such a good girl, and I love you. We’ll be there soon. Now play your game, or try to take a nap.”
“Okay.” The drone of the video-game music once more mingled with the cabin air.
Something familiar caught the corner of Paeton’s vision. It was the cover of her book, The Sky Streaks of Black! The woman across the aisle was deep into it. Oh, oh! Paeton knew her photo was on the back cover. What Paeton really didn’t need right now was a fan talking to her all the way to New York. They had been in the air for about an hour and had almost five hours remaining. They would be eating soon. Maybe that would keep the woman too busy to put two and two together. No such luck. Paeton noticed the woman raise her head tentatively toward her.
“Excuse me?” The fat woman leaned across the aisle. “Are you a romance reader?”
Yep! Here we go!. Maybe she could end this annoyance abruptly. She fooled with something on the baby, tendering only her profile. “Not really.”
“Oh.” The woman hesitated, then turned back to Paeton’s book.
Paeton roused an internal Yea!
Time inched by. Food! Where was breakfast? Finally, the flight attendant came to the head of the first-class cabin. “May I take your order? We have a western omelet with avocado, strawberry waffles, and ranchero steak and eggs.” Paeton looked up. The attendant was giving Paeton an inspecting look.
Paeton dropped her head. “We’ll have the waffles for my daughter. I’ll have the omelet.”
The a
ttendant abandoned all subtlety in her quest for a better look at Paeton’s face, bending awkwardly over the back of the seat ahead. “Anything I can get for the baby?”
“No. No, thank you. She’s, uh, he’s fine.” The attendant did not move down the row. Had she noticed Paeton’s obvious confusion about the gender of her child?
The attendant pursued her need to get a good look at Paeton’s face. No! Please, no!
But—as was Paeton’s luck of late—!
“Excuse me, but aren’t you—?” The attendant gulped. “You are! You’re Paeton McPhilomy! Oh, Ms. McPhilomy, I’ve read all—”
“I knew it! I just knew it!” The rich woman’s mass of jewelry jangled like the bells on an ice cream wagon. “Oh, how exciting! How exciting!” she squealed. “Right next to me! Paeton McPhilomy! Oh, goodness me! This is so splendid! Paeton McPhilomy! Right here on the airplane!” She put her pudgy face full into Paeton’s, looked at her with big, weepy eyes, and wailed, “Paeton McPhilomy—I don’t know how to say this—but—I love you!”
“So do I!” The flight attendant gushed after her, writing Paeton’s meal order right off the pad and up her arm.
Thankfully, the six other people in first class were not romance readers. No one else did more than briefly look up from reading or away from watching a movie.
The rich woman fitfully undid her safety belt and rolled out of her seat like a loose beachball. “And this must be your wonderful baby girl!” As she looked more intently at the baby, the woman’s jowled face twisted into a perplexed expression. She looked directly at Paeton. “I thought you had a baby girl!”
Paeton squirmed in her seat. Now she was having to explain the male-only outfit. “Simply joining the uni-sex thing.” She forced a nervous laugh. “It’s the new millennium, you know!” Then she decided to take the offensive. “You’re not anti-feminist, are you?”