The ocean! Of course! She had to be looking at the powerful and magnificent Pacific Ocean.
“Oh...how beautiful,” she exclaimed.
Her comment drew Jared’s gaze. “I thought you hated the ocean,” he said dryly.
Faith silently admonished herself for her lapse. What Jared said was true. Ever since Paula had fallen out of a sailboat during a storm when they were teens, nearly drowning in the process, she’d detested the ocean.
“Uh...I was just admiring the view,” Faith muttered, reminding herself that while she and her twin were almost identical in appearance, their preferences and personalities had often been in opposing camps.
“Admiring the view...” Jared repeated, his tone mocking. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
Faith heard the underlying skepticism in his voice and wondered at the animosity and cynicism he continually directed toward her, or more accurately toward Paula, his wife and the mother of his child.
There had been times throughout the long drive north she’d been tempted to blurt out the truth, to tell Jared she wasn’t Paula. But each time she’d glanced at his unsmiling and forbidding profile, she’d felt her courage evaporate.
She had to keep reminding herself of Jared’s plan to fight for sole custody of Nicky, and his threat to deprive Paula of her son. These were reasons enough for her to continue with the deception, at least until Paula contacted a lawyer.
And while Faith didn’t totally agree with or approve of the role she was being forced to play, she wanted to give her sister the benefit of the doubt and trust that Paula had the baby’s best interests at heart.
Faith glanced at the man beside her. His concern for his infant son seemed genuine, but she reminded herself how easily Glen had disguised his controlling nature behind a charming smile.
Besides, it would serve no real purpose to reveal her true identity, and would undoubtedly result in Jared asking...no, demanding that she leave. And Faith knew she could no more abandon Nicky or renege on the promise she’d made to her twin than fly to the moon.
Suddenly they made a right turn, bringing Faith’s attention back to the passing scene. She scanned the houses spread out along the street, noting that the car was climbing a steep hill. She wished it weren’t so dark so she’d have a better view of the area. At the crest of the hill Jared made another turn, and they proceeded to the end of the road where the houses seemed larger and the lots spread farther apart.
Moments later Jared swung the car into a driveway, and as he slowed to a halt a light on the building came on, its brightness effectively blinding her.
Faith shielded her eyes, and as she adjusted to the light she noted the large double garage doors directly in front of her. Jared opened them electronically.
“Will Nick need feeding again before you put him to bed?” Jared asked as he drove the car into the garage.
“Possibly. But he might settle down and go back to sleep.”
Jared switched off the engine, and in the dim lighting of the car’s interior she turned to him. His gaze held hers captive for several long seconds. Suddenly a random thought dropped into Faith’s mind, causing her heart to stumble in instant panic.
In her role of counterfeit wife, would she have to carry this crazy deception into the bedroom?
A rush of heat raced through her. Tearing her gaze away from Jared’s, she reached for the door handle, calmly telling herself she would simply insist on sleeping in Nicky’s room.
Besides, she quickly rationalized, if Jared’s anger and hostility toward her was anything to go by, she doubted he’d put up an argument.
After opening the rear door of the car, she undid the straps holding Nicky securely in place and gently eased him from the car seat. He stirred and whimpered a little in protest, then sighed and settled against her breast.
Faith closed the car door and turned to see Jared, the diaper bag slung over his shoulder, unlocking the door that led into the house.
With an air of confidence she was far from feeling, she caught up with him and followed him inside. When he stopped to flick on several light switches she almost collided with him.
Moments later she found herself in a spacious, brightly lit kitchen. In the center of the kitchen stood a work island, and on it a crystal fruit bowl containing a very ripe banana. With one quick glance Faith took in the pristine white cupboards and the burgundy-colored countertop. Blinds, the exact same shade as the counter, covered the windows above the sink.
Jared dropped the diaper bag on the counter and turned to her. “Why don’t you take Nick to the nursery. I’ll warm his bottle and bring it upstairs.” He opened a cupboard next to the sink and retrieved a glass bowl.
“Uh...okay.” Her gaze darted to the doorway on her left and the darkness beyond, then across the expanse of kitchen to another doorway. Which way were the stairs?
Nicky started to whimper, and Faith felt her pulse pick up speed. Before she could make a move, Jared turned to her once more.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, a frown creasing his handsome features.
“No,” she assured him, but she made no move to leave. Nicky’s whimpers changed to cries. “I need the diaper bag, that’s all,” she quickly improvised. “I’ll change him first.”
“Fine.” Jared flipped open the diaper bag and extracted the last full bottle of formula. Picking the bag off the counter, he held it out to her.
Faith hesitated, wondering how she could get Jared to show her the way to the nursery.
“Uh...listen...why don’t you take Nicky upstairs and change him?” she blurted out, and noted the flicker of surprise that came and went in his eyes. “If you don’t want to...” Faith let the words trail off, silently praying he’d rise to the challenge.
Jared held her gaze for another long second as if trying to see inside her head. A flash of something, distrust perhaps, danced briefly in his eyes before he spoke. “I’ll do it,” he said.
Deftly slinging the diaper bag onto his shoulder, he closed the gap between them. As he lifted Nicky out of her arms the back of his hand brushed her breast, sending a jolt of electricity right to her toes.
Faith swayed a little and her breath caught in her throat in startled reaction. To her relief, Jared was already moving through the darkened doorway to her left. With a flick of a switch the hall light came on, revealing the stairs.
Slowly releasing the breath she was holding. Faith tried to convince herself that regardless of the fact the kitchen floor was covered with ceramic tiles, the jolt she’d just experienced had been nothing more than static electricity.
Alone, she surveyed the kitchen once more, and in an attempt to familiarize herself with its layout opened several doors and quickly scanned the contents.
She filled the bowl with hot water and placed Nicky’s bottle in it to warm. Feeling sure Jared would be too involved changing the baby to notice how long she was taking, she decided to explore the lower floor.
Adjoining the kitchen was a midsize formal dining room with a beautiful oak table and eight ornate chairs. A large glass china cabinet displaying dishes and other china ornaments adorned one wall, while on the outside wall there was a set of elegant French doors. Tempted as she was to venture outside, Faith didn’t linger.
From the dining room, there were two wide steps leading down to a sunken living room. The far wall was taken up entirely by a granite fireplace, and grouped in front of it were a dark green leather couch, matching love seat and a cream-colored brocade easy chair.
Faith’s exploration was cut short by a muffled sound, coming from upstairs. Scurrying back across the thick, sand-colored carpet, she removed Nicky’s bottle from the warm water, quickly dried it off and headed for the stairs.
On reaching the top of the curved stairway, Faith glanced to her right. She could see three doors, each one standing open. She listened for a moment for a cry or a whimper that would direct her to the nursery.
She walked toward the f
irst doorway, and as she approached, she heard the faint strains of a lullaby coming from within.
Jared sat in the chair gently rocking his son, softly humming along with the lullaby playing on the music box hanging on the end of the crib.
A soft sound caught Jared’s attention and he glanced around to see Paula standing in the doorway.
Jared eased himself from the rocker and carried Nicky to the crib. As he tucked a tiny blanket around his son, he felt his heart swell with love. Nicky was home where he belonged, and nothing else mattered.
“He fell asleep,” Jared said, turning to face her. “I guess he wasn’t hungry after all.”
“He’ll probably be awake and very hungry sometime in the next hour. I’d better make up some more bottles. This is the last one,” she said, indicating the one she’d brought with her.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Jared said.
“Thanks, but I can manage.”
Jared crossed to the doorway, managing with difficulty to keep his anger in check.
“I said I’d give you a hand,” he repeated. “I’ll need to know how to make up Nicky’s bottles, because we both know it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be on the first bus to L.A.”
“No—” Faith protested, retreating into the hallway.
“I don’t know what your game is, Paula. or why you came back here,” Jared said, keeping his voice low. “I see you’ve even discarded the ring I gave you. Cramping your style, was it?” His tone held more than a hint of sarcasm. “I want you to listen and listen well,” he continued. “Nicky is staying here with me. That was the deal we made. Remember?”
He held her gaze, daring her to deny what he’d said, but all he could see in the depths of her emerald green eyes was a look of pain and sorrow, a look that tugged strangely at his heart.
It was an act. The emotions he was seeing weren’t real. She’s an actress, he reminded himself, and a damned good one.
But he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there was something different about Paula, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“I’m staying,” Faith said, her tone defiant. “How often do I have to say it before you believe me?” she asked, ignoring his comment about the ring.
Tension crackled between them like a living, breathing thing and suddenly Jared found himself fighting an almost overwhelming urge to haul her into his arms and cover her mouth with his.
But before he could follow through on the startling impulse, the phone rang, shattering the tension arcing between them.
Jared cursed under his breath. “Excuse me.” Spinning away, he hurried toward his bedroom, not sure whether he was relieved or annoyed by the timely interruption.
Crossing to his bedside table, he grabbed the receiver on the fourth ring. “Hello!” He practically spat the greeting into the mouthpiece.
“McAndrew! Greg Dunsford here.”
“Greg! Hi,” Jared responded. In all the excitement of locating Paula and Nicky, Jared had forgotten about the private detective he’d hired to track them down.
“I thought I’d better call and bring you up to date,” the detective said. “Did you get the message I left on your answering machine last night?”
“Message? No...what message?” Jared asked. He hadn’t had time to check them yet.
“A couple of hours after I called you last night to tell you I’d found her, she took off again. I followed the taxi to the San Francisco airport and called you from there—”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, you followed her to the airport?” Jared asked, frowning.
“She left the address I gave you in San Francisco and hopped a cab to the airport,” Greg Dunsford repeated. “But this time she didn’t take the baby with her.”
“Didn’t what?” Jared ran a hand through his hair, growing more confused by the second.
“I managed to get a ticket on the same night, then I called and left you a message.” he continued. “Once we got to L.A., I had trouble keeping up with her. I kept losing her in the traffic.”
“Losing her? What the hell are you talking about?” Jared asked, totally lost now.
“I figured she’d be heading downtown and got lucky after I checked out a few places. I’m happy to report I’ve picked up her trail again,” he went on. “She’s here in L.A., staying at the Plaza.”
“Who’s in L.A.?” Jared countered. His head was spinning, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d somehow walked into the middle of an old vaudeville comedy routine.
“Paula Preston, of course. The woman you hired me to find,” the detective replied.
Chapter Four
Jared slowly replaced the receiver, his thoughts in chaos. He sank onto his bed and, elbows on his knees, bent forward and tunneled both hands through his hair. What the hell was going on?
Resting his head in his hands for a moment, he struggled to make sense of it all. Greg must have made a mistake. Paula was downstairs.
The woman Greg had followed to L.A. had to have been someone who looked like Paula—her actor friend and most likely the owner of the house in San Francisco. Realizing someone was tailing her, Paula had probably asked her friend to impersonate her as a means of throwing Greg off the scent and buying herself some time.
It was the only logical explanation. Wanting to cover all the bases, however, Jared had instructed Greg to keep the woman he thought was Paula under surveillance and report back in a few days with an update.
In the meantime, curiosity, along with a need to have his suspicions confirmed, prompted Jared to make some inquiries of his own concerning the owner of the house in San Francisco.
Reaching for the phone, he placed a call to his college buddy Damian DeMarco, a detective in the San Francisco Police Department who he knew liked to work night shift.
“Detective DeMarco.” His friend’s familiar husky voice came down the wires. “How can I help you?”
“Hey, DeMarco! Haven’t they promoted you to captain yet?” Jared teased.
“Jared! Hey, good buddy! How goes it?” his friend replied. “Are you calling to tell me you’re here in town?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” Jared replied. “I’m calling to ask a favor.”
DeMarco chuckled. “I might have known. Okay. Fire away,” he said.
“If I give you an address in San Francisco, could you check the owner out for me, find out everything you can?” Jared asked.
“Is this for a case you’re working on?” the detective asked.
“In a way,” Jared hedged, and proceeded to give him the address.
“I suppose I could make some discreet inquiries, if that’s what you want,” DeMarco replied. “It’s quiet here tonight. I’ll get on it right away and give you a call tomorrow.”
“Great. Oh...would you call me at my office,” Jared said. “And thanks, buddy. I owe you one.”
Satisfied he’d done all he could, Jared hung up.
Faith stood in the kitchen listening for the sounds of footsteps that would tell her Jared was off the phone. After he’d hurried toward the bedroom down the hall to answer the telephone’s summons, she’d taken the opportunity to peek into the bedroom directly opposite the nursery.
The room was large and spacious with an adjoining bathroom, and it was with some relief that Faith noted the general state of upheaval, an upheaval that told her someone had recently been occupying the room.
Venturing farther inside, Faith opened the closet door to discover an assortment of dresses, blouses and pants, some of them maternity wear, clothes she guessed belonged to her sister.
Faith felt reasonably sure Paula had been sleeping in the guest bedroom, and she could only assume that in the late stages of her pregnancy and out of consideration for her husband, Paula had moved out of the master bedroom.
For Faith it was a reprieve, of sorts.
On returning to the kitchen, she’d busied herself making up a batch of bottles for Nicky. But as the minutes slowly ticke
d by with no sign of Jared, she began to worry and wonder. Could the caller have been Paula? Or perhaps Paula’s lawyer?
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to take so long.”
Faith drew a startled breath as Jared’s voice cut through her musings. She tensed, waiting expectantly for him to announce that he knew her true identity, followed by an angry demand for her to leave.
“I just locked up the garage and brought in your knapsack.” he said. “I left it at the foot of the stairs. You’ve finished making up Nicky’s bottles, I see.”
“Yes,” Faith responded.
“Fine. You can show me how it’s done next time,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.” Jared sauntered across the floor toward her. “Care to join me?”
Caught off guard by the invitation, Faith darted him a nervous glance.
“Ah...no, thank you,” she said. “Nicky will be awake soon, and I’m rather tired. I think I’ll just go up to bed.” As soon as the words were out she felt her pulse gather speed, wondering if Jared would think she meant she’d be waiting in his bed...their bed.
Flustered, she could feel a telltale blush begin to invade her cheeks, and hurriedly she backed away from his advancing figure, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
Jared saw the color seep into her face and noted, too, the way she deliberately sidestepped him. Frowning, he reached up to open the cupboard above the fridge and extracted a half-empty bottle of Napoleon brandy.
“You don’t have to worry about Nicky,” he said as he opened another cupboard and removed a brandy snifter. “I’ll take care of him when he wakes up.”
“There’s no need,” she quickly assured him. Rounding the work island, she widened the gap between them. “I really don’t mind....” Her voice trailed off.
“Aren’t you taking this doting-mother routine a little too far?” Jared’s tone was challenging and his gaze zeroed in on her.
“I...I don’t know what you mean,” she responded, quickly breaking eye contact with him, but not before he’d seen the flicker of panic that danced briefly in her green eyes.
The Baby Arrangement Page 4