Stroke of Fortune

by Christine Rimmer

  The doves had stopped their cooing. The silence echoed. Each of the men seemed to be looking anywhere but in each other’s eyes. A small two-engine plane buzzed by overhead, heading out of the small airstrip at Mission Ridge a few miles away.

  Tyler cleared his throat. Michael looked down at his shoes. Spence glanced up at the plane as it soared by overhead, then looked at Flynt—and then away again.

  Flynt grew impatient with all those shifting glances. “You guys have something to say, spit it out.”

  “Fine,” said Tyler. “Question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How old do you think that baby is?”

  Michael answered that. “I’d guess eight weeks—give or take a week.”

  “So we’re talking about last summer, right? June or July? Maybe August?”

  Michael tipped his head to the side. “Conception, you mean?”

  Tyler nodded.

  “Yeah. I’d say that’s about right.”

  “Okay, then.” Tyler raked his black hair back from his forehead. “I suppose it’s possible that she could be mine.”

  Michael made a low sound in his throat. “Well, guess what? She could be mine, too—though I’m probably the least likely prospect of the four of us. Not a lot of people knew I would be here looking for a pickup game today.”

  Spence said, “Okay.”

  “Okay what?” prodded Tyler.

  “Okay, you got me. I’m no celibate. Count me in as potential father number four.”

  “And what about Luke?” Tyler reminded them. “He’s here at the ninth tee, too, every Sunday around eight—unless something important comes up. And today, he never called me to tell me he was taking a pass on the game.”

  “Didn’t call me, either,” said Spence.

  “All right,” Flynt admitted. “So he didn’t show up and he didn’t call.”

  “Which means the word is not out that he wouldn’t be here,” Tyler said. “And whoever left the baby could very well have assumed that Luke would be here. That means he’s in the running, too—at this point, anyway. The note could have been meant for him. It could have been intended for any one of us.”

  “Fine.” Flynt cradled Lena with the utmost care. “Great. Gotcha. It might be one of us. It might be Luke. It might be any number of guys. But the fact remains this baby goes home with me.”

  Spence looked at him for a very long time. Then he blew out a weary breath. “You’re not going to budge on this one, are you?”

  “You got it.”

  “Hell…”

  “Talk to me.”

  “All right. Would you agree to a compromise?”

  “That depends.”

  Spence laid it out. “I could pull a few strings. Maybe you could take that baby home with you. But there’s no way you’ll get out of an interview—make that interviews. Technically the club’s within the city limits, but the county’s been helping out lately, since the trouble in the Men’s Grill.”

  Trouble was putting it mildly. A few months back, a corrupt group of Mission Creek’s finest had blown the club’s Men’s Grill to smithereens in a failed attempt to kill off the man determined to expose them. That whole area of the club was now being rebuilt. And with so many of its former officers in jail, the Mission Creek P.D. was in something of a state of disarray. Lately the sheriff often ended up stepping in to take up the slack.

  “What are you saying, Spence? That I’ll have to talk to the sheriff?”

  “It’s pretty likely. And somebody from the MCPD, too. And Child Protective Services. T’s have got to be crossed, I’s will need dotting.”

  “The sheriff,” Flynt repeated. The Lone Star County sheriff was a Wainwright—Justin Wainwright, to be specific. Wainwrights were never welcome at Carson Ranch.

  “Sorry,” said Spence. “The sheriff’s office is going to want to know about this.”

  “You think I give a damn what the sheriff’s office wants to know?”

  “You’d better give a damn. You want them all on your side if you hope to keep that baby at the ranch without getting arrested for kidnapping, or something equally unpleasant.”

  Right then, Lena stirred in Flynt’s arms. She let out the sweetest, softest little sigh—and suddenly, the prospect of a Wainwright at the ranch didn’t seem all that impossible. If it had to be, it had to be. “You’ll arrange it?”

  Spence shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “I’m not hanging around to have the MCPD and the sheriff’s office and God knows who else crawling all over the club. They’ll come to the ranch and talk to me there—all of them, whoever needs to know about this.”

  “I can probably work that out.”

  “And we’ll keep it under wraps, as much as possible.”

  “We’ll try.”

  “Do more than try. I want this kept quiet.” Flynt couldn’t stop thinking of Josie, of keeping the gossip mill from going to work on her. If the story got out…Well, folks didn’t look kindly on a woman who dumped her baby and ran. Josie had suffered through some tough times in her young life, but up till now, at least, the citizens of Mission Creek had been on her side. She didn’t need the town’s scorn dumped on her on top of all the rest of it.

  Spence said, “Look, I’m not saying a word except on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Fine by me,” said Tyler. “I can keep my mouth shut.”

  “No problem,” Michael added. “This is strictly between the four of us, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Flynt looked at each of the other men in turn. “Good. And Lena stays with me until we find out who her mother is.”

  Spence’s mouth twisted ruefully. “There’s someone else you’ll have to convince on that score.”

  Flynt understood. “The social worker.”

  “You got it.”

  “Okay,” Flynt said quietly. The baby in his arms was starting to cry again. He patted her back, trying to soothe her. “Tell me what I have to do.”

  Two

  The Lone Star Country Club came into being in 1923, founded by Flynt’s great-grandfather, Big Bill Carson and Big Bill’s ranching buddy, J. P. Wainwright. At that time, both the Carson and Wainwright holdings had grown to the point that their property lines met. It was there, where the two huge ranches came together, that Big Bill and J.P. kicked in a thousand acres each to form a social club.

  Four years later, J.P’s beloved daughter, Lou Lou, drowned herself when Big Bill’s oldest son broke her heart. J.P. came after the boy with his shotgun, but it was Big Bill he ended up shooting, shattering not only both of the man’s legs, but also the bond of friendship that had held strong for three decades.

  Since then, no Carson had called a Wainwright his friend. The feud between the two families was bitter, rife with dirty tricks on both sides, and as deeply rooted now as the proud oaks that lined the curving driveway up to the soaring facade of the Lone Star Country Club’s pink granite clubhouse.

  Both ranches remained large—and prosperous. And both families held considerable influence in South Texas, in the nearby town of Mission Creek, and at the country club their forefathers had created. Down the years, both Carsons and Wainwrights had sat on the club’s board of directors, the families tacitly keeping an uneasy peace with each other on the neutral ground of the club.

  Flynt himself was currently serving a term as club president. And that Sunday in May, he was glad he’d taken the job. It meant that club employees followed his orders without asking any questions.

  As soon as he and Spence had ironed out their compromise, Flynt put Lena in the car seat and managed to hook the thing into the golf cart. Then Michael drove them to the clubhouse.

  Flynt had thought at first that he’d head straight for the ranch. But the baby wouldn’t stop crying. Maybe she needed food, or a diaper change. Whatever. He decided he’d better find out what was wrong with her before he did anything else. He had the surgeon let him off at a service entrance in back.

  Halfway up t
he back stairs, on his way to the club’s business offices on the second floor, he met up with one of the maids. He told her to find Harvey Small, the new club manager he’d hired himself not long before, and to say that Flynt Carson wanted to see him in Harvey’s office right away.

  “Si, Mr. Carson. Right away.”

  As the maid hurried off to do his bidding, Lena let out a really loud wail. He took a minute to murmur a few soothing words, then he headed up the stairs again.

  In Harvey’s office, he took Lena out of the seat and raised her to his shoulder. When he rubbed her back a little, she seemed to settle down—for a minute or two. Then the crying started up again. By the time the club manager bustled in, Flynt had spent five minutes pacing the floor, laying on the gentle pats and the soothing words, trying to calm Lena and never really quite succeeding.

  Harvey sputtered some at the sight of the baby. Then Flynt questioned him on the subject of baby things—like diapers and wipes, formula and maybe even a diaper bag. Harvey replied that yes, they had those things on hand, just in case a guest might need them.

  “Then, go get them. And make it fast. And arrange to have my pickup brought around to the service entrance off the Empire Room. I want it ready there, engine running, in ten minutes. I don’t want to go out the front, understand? And I want you and that maid I sent after you to keep your mouths shut about this little girl.”

  “Well, of course we will, Flynt. You can count on our absolute discretion in this matter and we—”

  “Great. Go.”

  It took Harvey eleven minutes and thirty-four seconds to return with the damn diaper bag. By then Lena was hardly bothering to breathe between angry sobs. The manager’s office had a small bar area, complete with granite counter, stainless steel sink and microwave. Flynt sent Harvey over there to deal with getting the bottle ready, while he took on the diapering job. It wasn’t the best time he’d ever had, but he managed it. Harvey rose to the occasion, too, figuring out how to fill the plastic bag inside the bottle and warming it up without getting it too hot.

  Then there was the feeding to accomplish. Obviously the kid had clear plumbing, because she needed another diaper change right after she ate. After he took care of that, Flynt finally felt it was safe to head for the ranch.

  He was reasonably certain no one saw him going down to the service entrance door. As for the driver who brought his vehicle around from the parking lot, he gave the man a twenty and told him to go straight to Harvey. Harvey would make it painfully clear that talking about how Mr. Carson had slipped out the back with a baby would be a bad move for anyone hoping to hold on to his job.

  Lena slept the whole way home. Flynt had an extended cab on his pickup, so he’d put her in the back seat, facing the rear as the diagrams on the side of the car seat had indicated. He kept craning his head over his shoulder, to check on her. She looked so damn sweet, her head drooping to the side, those soft black curls shiny as silk against her plump cheek.

  He called the ranch on the way. When the housekeeper answered, he asked for his mother, Grace. Luck was with him. She was home.

  “Flynt? What is it?”

  “Ma, I need your help.”

  “Has something happened?” He heard the worry in her voice. He hadn’t had a drink in over a year, but still, she was his mother and a mother will always worry. “Are you—”

  “I’m fine, Ma. Sober as a temperance worker. Would you do me a favor?”

  “I don’t underst—”

  “I’ll explain it all as soon as I get there, which should be in about ten minutes.”

  “Oh, Flynt. Are you sure that you—”

  “Ma. Can I count on you?”

  A pause, then, “You know you don’t really need to ask.”

  He smiled. “Great. Gotta go.”

  She was waiting for him on the front porch, a plump, pretty woman in her Sunday best, with chin-length graying blond hair and kind, rather worried blue eyes. She hurried down the wide stone steps and reached the passenger door of his pickup almost before he’d pulled to a stop in the half-moon driveway that curved in front of the house. She didn’t say a word as he got out and went to free Lena’s carrier from the back seat. He left his pickup right there in front and they went inside, Grace bustling ahead, Flynt following with Lena and all the baby gear.

  Flynt had his own wing. They headed straight for it, managing by some minor miracle not to run into any of the household staff or the family on the way. When they reached Flynt’s private sitting room, his mother ushered him through. Shutting the door, she turned to him.

  She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. He saw what she was thinking in her eyes.

  Flynt was thirty-four years old, had been more or less in charge of the business end of the ranch for years now. He also managed the various Carson holdings, which included oil interests, investments in local citrus groves and some lucrative properties on the Gulf Coast. He’d been to war, been married and widowed, fought a battle with the bottle that, at this point anyway, he appeared to be winning. But when Grace Carson gave him the kind of look she gave him right then, he still felt like an ill-behaved ten-year-old boy.

  He set Lena, still sound asleep in the car seat, carefully on the Oriental rug at his feet, dropped the diaper bag on the coffee table and tried a crooked smile. “I guess you were all ready to head to church, huh, Ma?”

  She went on staring him down for a good twenty seconds. Then, at last, she spoke. “The Lord will have to wait this Sunday. But that’s all right. He has infinite patience. I don’t. What’s going on?”

  Flynt told his mother the truth—or at least, most of it. About finding Lena on the golf course, about the water-smeared note pinned to her blanket.

  Grace went straight for the heart of the matter. “You believe you could be the father, is that it?”

  He confessed, “It’s possible, Ma.”

  “Well, all right. If you’re the father, who’s the mother?”

  He’d expected that question. Still, it didn’t make it any easier to answer.

  Grace knew Josie Lavender, had been very fond of her. Josie had come to them four years ago, when she was just nineteen, to work as a maid. But she hadn’t stayed a maid. Within a year, due to her willingness to apply herself, her good organizational skills and great attitude, she’d become their housekeeper. Grace—along with the rest of the family—had counted on her, grown to like her and respect her. Then, last year, Josie had left them, without notice, seemingly right out of the blue.

  Grace still resented her for taking off like that. Flynt had tried to smooth things over, telling his mother it was “family problems” that had forced their formerly dependable housekeeper to vanish from their lives. The vague explanation hadn’t satisfied Grace. Flynt hated that his mother thought less of Josie for something that was actually his fault. But he knew if he gave his mother the real facts behind Josie’s sudden departure, it would only make things worse.

  So he kept quiet—and despised himself for it.

  “Flynt, I asked you who that baby’s mother is.”

  “I can’t say for certain, not at this point.”

  “Well, fine. Then who do you think that baby’s mother is?”

  “Ma, I’ve told you all I can right now. I need you to help me look after this baby, and I need you to keep what I’ve said quiet. Will you do those things for me?”

  Grace looked tired all of a sudden. And old.

  “Just give it to me straight, Ma. Will you help me or not?”

  “Oh, Flynt. You know very well you don’t even need to ask.”

  Grace took on baby-sitting duties when Detective Hart O’Brien, a friend of Spence’s, showed up from the Mission Creek Police Department about an hour later. Hart had already interviewed Spence, and Spence had turned over the water-splotched note. At the ranch, Hart took Flynt’s statement and then asked him why he thought the abandoned child should remain in his care.

  Flynt admitted he thought Lena might be
his.

  Detective O’Brien asked the same thing Grace had. “If you think you’re the father, then who do you believe is the baby’s mother?”

  And Flynt set about hedging an answer. “Look, I’ll be honest. I’m not certain I’m the father. And I don’t want to bring any trouble on an innocent woman. First, I’ll need to find out if Lena is mine. If she is, then no harm has been done. She’s only gone from one parent to the other. If Lena’s not mine…well then, it’s no one’s business who I spend my time with, now is it?”

  It was a lot of fast talk and Flynt could see in Hart’s eyes that the detective knew it. But his reply gave Flynt hope. “All right. It’s obvious the baby is in good hands here. Spence said he was contacting CPS—Child Protective Services. And the sheriff’s office, too.”

  “Yeah.” Flynt regarded the other man warily. “That’s the plan.”

  “Representatives from both agencies should be here soon, then.”

  “Right.”

  “So I’ll just hang around and see what the social worker has to say about the situation.”

  A thin, soft-spoken woman from CPS appeared about five minutes later. She handed Flynt a business card. “I’m Eliza Guzman. I’ll be baby Lena’s caseworker.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  The social worker examined the baby and got a tour of the main house and grounds. “You would need to fix up a room for the child,” she said.

  Flynt showed her the bedroom next to his own. Two and a half years ago, that room had been set up as a nursery, with a crib and a changing table, bins of toys, stacks of blankets and diapers, and bright murals on the mint-green walls. After the accident that took both his wife and unborn child, he’d ordered everything hauled down to the basement, where it remained.

  Of course, he didn’t go into any of that with the social worker. He only said, “Generations of babies have been born in this house. We’ve got baby stuff, everything Lena could possibly need, stored down in the basement. I’ll have this room set up for her immediately.”