The Knight, the Waitress and the Toddler

by Arlene James

  “So nice to meet you, Mr. White.” She indicated the little ones clustered around her. “These are my children.” She rattled off five Spanish names, none of which Edward really caught.

  “My goodness!” he exclaimed. “You certainly have plenty of experience.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Martinez is a wonderful mother and sitter,” Laurel said; then, turning to Mrs. Martinez, she added, “I’m sure you’d like a few minutes off, though, so I’ll just take this guy upstairs. Okay?”

  Mrs. Martinez nodded happily and reached into her apron pocket. “You’ll need this. I know you don’t have any more extras in your apartment.” She held out a bright yellow pacifier.

  Barry comically opened his mouth for it, then leaned forward and clamped it between his four front teeth. The children all laughed and commented between themselves in Spanish. Edward laughed, too, and ruffled the boy’s neon bright head, leaving his hair sticking up even worse than usual. Barry grinned around the pacifier, showing his four good teeth and one or two others that had barely broken the gum line.

  Laurel tickled his tummy and attempted to take the pacifier from his mouth. “You silly boy! You don’t want that nasty old thing anymore, do you?” But Barry bit down and hung on.

  Edward chuckled. “I think we can safely say that he does, indeed, want the pacifier, don’t you, guy?” Barry grinned and gibbered baby talk without ever relinquishing his hold on the pacifier nipple. He really was a cute little guy. Edward could see why Laurel was so fond of him. He wondered again how Fancy had come to have a kid like this. Or was it that he belonged to a mutual friend of hers and Laurel’s? He wasn’t completely straight on that yet. Not that it was high on his priority list at the moment.

  Laurel said goodbye to Mrs. Martinez and her brood and began the climb again, this time with Barry on her hip. Edward wondered if the baby wasn’t too much of a load for her, but she shook her head when he offered to take him. She seemed awfully tense, and he decided a little small talk might put her at ease about the conversation they were about to have, whatever it turned out to be.

  “Mrs. Martinez seems like a good choice for a sitter.”

  “Oh, she is,” Laurel assured him.

  “How did Fancy come to choose a sitter in your building? Or does Fancy live here, too?”

  Laurel shook her head. “No, Fancy lives a couple blocks west of here. I, um, actually found Mrs. Martinez. We sort of take care of him together.”

  “Ah. That explains why you sure seem fond of the little guy.”

  Her face went all soft, and she shifted the boy in her arms to hug him to her. “Oh, yes. I couldn’t love him more if I’d given birth to him myself.”

  Edward nodded, uncertain why that bothered him. “Um, where did you say his mother was?”

  Her expression abruptly closed. “I don’t know. No one knows.”

  “Someone must,” he replied.

  She shook her head. “No one around here does. His, ah, birth mother knew she could trust her friend to take care of him, so she left him and disappeared. She was too young to make a good mother herself, and a little selfish, if you know what I mean.”

  “I can imagine,” he said. “What surprises me is that child welfare would go along with the arrangement. I mean, I wouldn’t think Fancy is exactly their idea of a proper foster mother.”

  Laurel shot him a scathing glare. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him coolly.

  He bowed his head. Would he never learn not to insult her friends? She was wrong about his not knowing the workings of the child welfare system, though, not that he was going to tell her that. He said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting, honestly.”

  For some reason, her face look utterly bleak, but she said, “I know you didn’t.”

  They reached the landing and walked along it, Laurel fishing in her purse for her key. “Here, let me,” Edward said when she’d found it. She turned it over and he bent to unlock the door. As he straightened again, Barry reached out and snagged his lapel. Edward laughed. “Like the new threads, do you, pal? Me, too.”

  Laurel carefully pried loose the plump little fingers while Barry gibbered around his pacifier and Edward pushed open the door. They went inside. The place was dark as a tomb. Laurel switched on a light, but it didn’t help much. Edward leaned a shoulder against the wall and waited for his eyes to adjust while he listened to her move around the room, depositing the baby in the crib and getting herself a glass of water.

  “Want a drink? I’ve got some canned soda.”

  “No, thanks.”

  She stepped out of her shoes and wiggled her toes, sighing.

  “Tough work, being on your feet all day,” he commented, and she nodded.

  “Yeah, well, I’m sure lawyering is tough sometimes, too.”

  Man, she didn’t know the half of it, and now was not the time to tell her. He shifted his position against the wall, thinking about her and this dark, too-small apartment. He was all too aware that she was counting on him to help her get out of here. If only he knew what to do about that. Laurel might have been reading his mind, for she cocked her head suddenly and said, “You wanted to talk to me?”

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, I was…I was wondering if you’d like to go to dinner with me on Sunday?”

  She didn’t look at all surprised by the invitation, but oddly she glanced at the baby. “I don’t know….”

  He found himself hastening to convince her. “Listen, the Sugarmans have invited us and some other friends to dinner. I thought it would be a good chance for everyone to get to know one another. They really are my best friends, and you’re my—” He swallowed the word he’d nearly said. Choking on it, he coughed and cleared his throat. What was wrong with him? Had he really nearly said the word girlfriend? Good grief! She was much more client than…and she wasn’t even really a client! He licked his lips and stammered, “Or-ordinarily I h-hate dinner parties, but I thought if you would go with me, it—it wouldn’t…That is, I wouldn’t mind…”

  She was smiling so he shut up, a finger creeping up to tug at his collar, which seemed awfully tight suddenly. “Sunday?” she said. “Well, maybe I can make it.”

  He felt an almost overwhelming relief, which in itself was absurd. “You won’t regret it,” he said. “Parker and Kendra have some interesting friends.”

  “Yes, I know,” she told him, her smile leaving little doubt that she was alluding to him. He felt lower than an earthworm, and suddenly he wanted out of there.

  He rattled off something about picking her up and answered a question about appropriate dress while heading for the door. She followed him out, thanking him for the ride and watching as he hurried along the landing toward the stairs. The last thing he heard before she’d closed the apartment door was Barry shrieking for his absent mother, whoever she was.

  Chapter Eight

  She wore white leggings with lace around the ankles and a laceedged tank top beneath a long, lightweight, frock coat of periwinkle blue with push-up sleeves and extreme lapels, deeply notched and top-stitched with white plastic lacings. Her shoes, with their thick platform soles and blunt, rounded toes matched the shiny plastic lacing, as well as the narrow band with its long, flat bow on the side that she wore to hold her bangs back off her forehead. She was as nervous as a songbird in a room full of cats.

  When Edward’s fist landed on her hollow metal door, she started just as if she hadn’t heard his heavy treads coming up the stairs and along the landing. She knew instantly that she should have dressed more conservatively, maybe a tailored pantsuit and a silk blouse. Desperately, she glanced around the room, as if she had time to change before she had to open that door.

  “Laurel?” He was trying to be quiet, but his big voice boomed along the stairwell, and everyone in the building was bound to be home on a lazy Sunday evening.

  She hurried to let him in, her first words being, “I have to change!”

  He moved inside as she did, leavin
g the door open behind him so that the early-evening light softened the darkness of the apartment. He leaned a shoulder against the wall and said, “What’s wrong with what you’re wearing?”

  She fully turned to face him. “Really? It’s all right?” And then she forgot the question as her startled gaze traveled over him.

  He wore a soft, loose, collarless shirt of natural ivory silk that draped his powerful torso in graceful, clinging lines, the narrow cuffs at his wrists keeping the slightly blousy, overlong sleeves from falling down over his hands. The matching, generously pleated slacks were long enough to very nearly puddle atop the supple pierced leather slippers on his otherwise bare feet It was a look she had known he could wear, but who’d have thought to see big, tough, uncompromising, all male Edward White in soft pastels? Heavens, he looked as though he could don armor and go jousting. How had he come to this all on his own? She felt as proud as a parent whose dearest hopes for a difficult child have just been realized.

  “Edward, you look great,” she said, a touch of awe in her voice.

  “Thanks.” He shrugged and said, “I thought this was one time I didn’t have to be, you know, buttoned down, but jeans didn’t seem quite right, either.”

  “Well, this is perfect,” she said, lifting a hand bemusedly.

  He smiled, his gaze snagging and holding hers. “You’re looking pretty perfect yourself.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  She fought down a blush of pleasure and began buttoning her coat. “Maybe we should just go, then. I wouldn’t want to be late. Oh, and I’d like to get in early, if we can.”

  He nodded understanding. “Work tomorrow.”

  And Barry, she answered silently, resisting the urge to toss a glance at the baby’s crib in the corner. As usual, thoughts of Barry stuck with a baby-sitter again—in this case, Fancy—dampened some of Laurel’s enthusiasm for the evening. She remembered with aching clarity the discussion she’d had with Fancy when the older woman had come for Barry. Fancy had been insistent that Laurel was going to have to tell Edward about the boy.

  “You can’t go on pretending you’re just a helpful friend pitching in occasionally,” she had argued.

  Laurel had admitted that Fancy was right. “I know. I never expected things to develop this way, though. I never dreamed that he’d, well, like me.”

  Fancy had shaken her head. “Girl, why is it you can’t see what you’ve got to offer a man? ‘Course he likes you. Any man in his right mind would. And I’ve got the feeling old Eddie boy is more often in his right mind than the average feller.”

  Laurel had smiled at that. “All the more reason I can’t let him find out about Barry.”

  “You honestly think this cute little tyke is going to make that big a difference?”

  “I don’t know,” Laurel had been forced to say. “I feared at first that Barry’s circumstances might keep Edward from taking my case. I have enough strikes against me there. And I can’t risk Bryce finding out about him—that hasn’t changed. So I kept quiet, and now I’m afraid that keeping the truth about Barry from Edward will cost me more than I ever realized. I don’t know what to do.”

  Fancy had sighed and said warningly, “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if he found out from somebody else. You stand to lose not just a possible lover but, more importantly, a lawyer, too. You’re gonna have to decide which relationship is most important and do what’s necessary to protect it”

  Laurel hadn’t been sure then and wasn’t sure now which relationship might mean the most to her in the long run. She knew intellectually that securing his aid in gaining control of her inheritance ought to rate highest, for Barry if not for herself, but somehow she couldn’t convince her heart of that. And she hadn’t even been on a real date with the man yet! Today would change that, though, and she couldn’t help wondering if the significance of that had struck him as deeply as it had her. Certainly the way that he was looking at her seemed to say that he attached some significance to the occasion. But of course he did! He was taking her to meet his friends, his very best friends, one of them a woman with whom he’d been in love. Oh, dear, what if Kendra Sugarman hated her on sight?

  She tried to put that possibility out of mind as Edward escorted her out of the apartment complex to the car and drove her leisurely toward the Park Cities. He talked about Parker and Kendra as he drove, telling her about Parker’s former life-style, his career as an architect and his transformation from playboy to proud dad and househusband. He spoke of Kendra as a “soft touch” who had originally married Parker in order to help him secure custody of his orphaned niece, her reputation as a pediatric nurse making her the best prospect around for the job. She was, according to Edward, an amazing mother to her adopted daughter and the miracle worker who had transformed Parker into model mate and parent. Laurel couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t still a little in love with the woman and if she was going to hate Kendra on sight because of it.

  She loved the house on sight, a fact that seemed to surprise Edward, who informed her that the reformed Georgian facade done up in fawn brown and creamy white was Parker’s current pride and joy. “He can’t keep his hands off,” Edward said. “He’s constantly redesigning and remodeling.”

  “How exciting!” was her reply.

  He shrugged and got out of the car. She waited like the lady into which her grandmother had bullied her for him to come around and open her door. She was trembling when he took her hand and led her along the landscaped walk to the front door tucked away behind two immense columns. When Parker opened the door in answer to their knock, she saw that the columns were part of a theme carried throughout the house.

  To her surprise, Parker greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and an effusive welcome. Then he stepped back in awe of Edward’s fashionable splendor and demanded to know where he was getting his clothes these days. When he heard the name of his own tailor, he vowed to have a talk with the “disloyal little twit.”

  “He didn’t show me those things when I was there last.”

  A lovely, wholesome young woman with long golden brown hair hanging in a single plait down the center of her back carried a tray of appetizers into the sunken living area. She placed them on a glass coffee table between two cream-colored sofas, announcing, “Your tailor has a new favorite, I see.”

  She popped a tiny cracker into her mouth, dusted off her hands and moved forward with confident, businesslike steps. “Hello, I’m Kendra.” She held out her palm and Laurel timidly slid her own against it.

  “Laurel.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve been dying to meet you.” Her smile seemed guileless and gay, even mischievous when she turned it on Edward. “Quit loitering in the entry, you big galoot, and find her a comfortable seat.”

  Edward rolled his eyes. “Do you bully those poor kids at the hospital this way?”

  “Nope, just their parents” came the quick reply. Then she turned and led the way down into the living area.

  Laurel took her time, looking around her with great appreciation. The place was spotless, despite the pale shades of the cream, white and tan furnishings that stood out against the burnt almond walls. The place was more like a showroom than a house, with columns flanking the sunken area and art objects on pedestals scattered among exotic pot plants and the occasional painting on an easel. But here and there were the small oddities that made it a home—a framed photo, a tiny pair of Mary Jane shoes, a baby blue sweater, a doll-size cup and saucer. Kendra pointed out the shoes, sweater and toys to Parker, saying, “Your daughter still has not picked up her things.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Parker replied good-naturedly, continuing across the sunken floor and up a quartet of stairs to a door in the end wall. He opened that door and called into the room beyond. “Darla, Uncle Eddie and Ms. Miller are here.”

  “Uncle Eddie?” Laurel whispered to him, her brows raised.

  He gave her a murderous look, then turned his attention to
the adorable munchkin with dark hair caught up in twin ponytails who shot through the door, down the steps and across the room to throw herself against Edward’s legs, climb them, crawl over his lap and raise up on her knees to choke him with a fierce hug. Not content with crushing his larynx, she covered his face with noisy kisses. He pulled her legs out from under her so that she fell across his lap, tickled her until she couldn’t kiss him anymore, then kissed her back. “Come here, brat!” he said, scooping her up to stand her on her feet on the couch. “I want you to meet someone. This is Laurel.”

  Laurel smiled: “Hello.”

  “Hello.” Darla cocked her little head, dark eyes blatantly sizing up this newcomer and bent forward to press her small hands against Laurel’s cheeks. “You’re pretty,” she said matter-offactly.

  Laurel’s smile became laughter. She covered Darla’s hands with her own. “Thank you! So are you.”

  “I know,” Darla said with that same confidence with which she seemed to do everything else. Belatedly she added, “Thanks you,” and pulled her hands free, slid down onto her bottom, flopped over and wiggled off the couch. Running toward Kendra she said, “Mommy, can I have a drink?”

  Parker intercepted her, saying, “Not until you’ve picked up after yourself, little miss.” He pointed out the offending items.

  She covered her little mouth in a silent “oops,” giggled and ran to do as told, gathering up the items in her chubby arms and bolting down the open hallway to disappear through an open doorway at its end.

  “Oh, my,” Laurel said, seeing what she was in for a couple years down the road.

  Kendra laughed. “She does everything at full throttle these days. I get tired just watching her.”

  “And I get tired running after her,” Parker put in, sitting down on the arm of the sofa where his wife had taken a seat, opposite Laurel.

  “He loves every minute of it,” Kendra confided wryly.

  “Every second,” Parker amended, and the couple traded an intimate smile of complete harmony. A lump of pure envy formed in Laurel’s throat, and she groped blindly for Edward’s hand before she even realized what she was doing. To her joy, his strong fingers closed over hers and pulled her hand onto his -thigh, the action seemingly as instinctual as her own. Suddenly there were tears in her eyes, her heart leaping in her chest. She had to laugh and blink away the tears, drawing everyone’s attention. Knowing she had to explain herself, she said the obvious. “Darla is just adorable. You’re obviously doing something right.”