Bringing Up Baby

by Charlotte Douglas

  He set down the receiver, plumped the pillows against the headboard and lay against them. If his scheme was to be successful, he had to make some very careful plans. But his fifteen-hundred-mile pursuit of the moving van caught up with him, and while he slept, dollar signs and trust funds danced in his dreams.

  “YOU’VE BEEN FED and changed, so now what do you want?” Devon eyed the screaming child with dismay as she knelt and dug into the carryall in search of a toy. Her hand closed around a plastic rattle. She dragged it out and shook it inches from the red, tear-streaked face.

  The baby’s cries ceased, and she reached out with chubby fingers wet with drool, grabbed the toy and shoved it into her mouth.

  “Well,” Devon mused, rocking back on her heels, “that was easy enough. Maybe I’m getting the hang of this baby business.”

  She’d no sooner risen to her feet than the rattle struck her ankle, and Amanda’s cries resumed at full volume. Devon pulled out a clean toy, which Amanda clutched, then tossed onto the floor. A third toy met the same fate.

  “Lord, give me strength.” Devon scooped up the last toy with one hand and Amanda with the other and laid the wiggling body against her shoulder. The child snuggled against her, nuzzling her neck, and Devon fidgeted against the unaccustomed sensation. “You need a real home, kid. This is just a stopover on your way to someplace permanent, so don’t expect the kind of attention you’re used to.”

  She caressed the soft skin at the back of Amanda’s head and twined her fingers through the fine, silky curls of blond hair. Poor kid. It was tough being an orphan.

  Memories of her own solitary childhood strengthened her determination to place Amanda in a proper home, but first she’d need money for her legal battle, which meant enlisting Colin for the Davis interview. She had to convince him. She had no backup plan if he refused.

  With Amanda balanced on her shoulder, she moved into the kitchen, dropped the toy into the sink to be washed and extracted a large aluminum dish from the freezer.

  A well-fed man is a happy man, Gramma Donovan’s journal entries vowed. Maybe with a good meal in his stomach, Colin would see things her way. She struggled to remove the cardboard cover marked Paul’s Greek Market and Deli, but the job required two hands.

  “Sit here a minute, kid.” She lowered Amanda to the gleaming tile floor, then pried the cover from the container. After popping the dish into the oven, she surveyed the contents of the refrigerator to plan the rest of her menu.

  When she reached down to pick up Amanda, the baby was gone.

  “Amanda?” A quick glance revealed the child was no longer in the kitchen. How could such a tiny body move that fast? “Come to Devon, kiddo.”

  She tore through the dining nook and family room, but found no sign of the baby. The door to the hallway stood open, and in the dust and debris on the floor, she spotted handprints and drag marks from tiny knees and toes.

  Following the tracks, she skidded down the hall, bumping into baby furniture and tripping over toys, but the handprints disappeared among the chaos of footprints created by the movers when they’d brought in the furniture.

  Devon turned into the dining room, where Colin was planing the edge of a paneled door.

  “Have you seen her?” Panic edged her voice.

  “The baby?” He raised the plane and seared her with a scathing look. “You turned her loose in this place? Are you out of your mind?”

  She suppressed the urge to smack his handsome face. “I just set her down for a minute. I had no idea she could move so fast. So enough already with the accusations, just help me find her.”

  He dropped his tools and scoured the room, turning up drop cloths and checking behind lumber stacked against the wall. “We’d better find her fast. With the tacks and nails strewn across the floor—”

  A crash, followed by a baby’s shrill scream, resounded in the living room.

  “Oh, Lord, she’s hurt!” Devon bolted across the hall. Where earlier a board had spanned two ladders, a space gaped, and below it lay a jumble of canvas and paint cans.

  Terror clutched at Devon’s stomach. If one of those cans had hit the child…She fell to her knees in a puddle of Moonglow Yellow and began working her way through the debris toward the fallen objects.

  Colin thrust past her, tossed the heavy cans aside and flung back the canvas. Amanda’s brown eyes blinked in the light, and at the sight of Colin, her cries ceased. She raised her arms to him and gurgled. With a muffled cry, he gathered up the child and began checking her for injuries.

  Watching the powerful man’s gentle handling of the child created a strange prickling behind Devon’s eyelids, and she blinked away tears. “Is she okay?”

  “No thanks to you,” he grated out between clenched teeth. “She must have pulled the canvas and brought down the board and paint cans, but somehow they all missed her.”

  Devon felt the blood leave her face. “I only took my eyes off her for a minute—”

  “This baby’s life is in your hands” He glowered at her over the head of golden curls. “If you screw up big time, she doesn’t get a second chance.”

  She took Amanda from him and cradled her against her chest. “Thanks—”

  Before she could express her gratitude, he’d turned his back and returned to the dining room.

  COLIN STRUGGLED TO COOL his temper and focus on his work, but once his anger had faded, his stomach began to rumble like a power sander. He’d missed supper the night before when he’d taken his father to the hospital, this morning he’d come straight from the hospital to work, and he’d used his lunch break to visit his dad. His only nourishment had been coffee and a couple of Devon’s cookies. Now the aroma of garlic and tomato sauce drifted through the sawdustfilled room, making his mouth water.

  Between the hunger pains and the proposition Devon had offered him, he couldn’t concentrate. Measure twice, cut once, his dad had always told him. Hell, he’d measured the door five damn times already and he still couldn’t remember the dimensions.

  He retracted his tape measure, shoved his pencil behind his ear and resisted the urge to slip down the hallway for another peek at Devon and the baby. From the anguish on her face at Amanda’s near tragedy, he doubted she’d let the child out of her sight again soon. Even though she handled the baby clumsily with panic written all over her lovely face, watching the two of them together evoked strange feelings in him, dangerous emotions that encouraged him to accept her offer to pose as her husband.

  He tossed the tape measure into the toolbox with disgust. Involvement with another career-minded female was the last thing he needed. It had taken two years, three attorneys and all his savings to disentangle him from Felicia. He’d be crazy to allow himself within ten feet of another like her, much less consider moving in with one, even for his father’s sake.

  “Would you like to stay for supper? I made plenty.” Devon stood in the doorway, juggling Amanda on her shoulder. She’d scrubbed the paint from her knees and changed into a flowered dress with a short divided skirt that emphasized her long legs. A hint of makeup amplified the emerald in her eyes. Amanda drooled over her shoulder, soaking the floral fabric.

  “You need a towel,” he warned.

  “What?”

  “She’s drooling all over you.”

  He stepped into the family room, retrieved a diaper from the carryall and returned to tuck it across Devon’s shoulder. The fresh scent of baby powder and jasmine filled his nostrils, and the warmth of Devon’s skin against his relayed pleasure signals to his groin.

  “Thanks.” She smiled up at him. “Now, how about some supper?”

  “I don’t—” Before he could decline, the doorbell chimed.

  “Would you hold her a minute?” Without waiting for an answer, she passed Amanda to him and hurried to the door.

  “Devon, you look marvelous!” A short, plump woman in a fire-engine red dress whisked in like a whirlwind and threw her arms around Devon. “It’s wonderful to see you, but
this humid Florida climate—it’s worse than New York in summer, which is hotter than Hades.”

  “You’re just in time for supper,” Devon said. She closed the door behind the woman and turned to him. “Colin O’Reilly and Amanda, meet Leona Wiggins, my agent.”

  The little woman’s dark eyes sparkled. “Delighted, Mr. O’Reilly. Devon, you do work fast. A husband and baby conjured up in less than eight hours. I am impressed.”

  “I’m not—” Colin began, but Amanda cut loose an earsplitting shriek. He checked her diaper. “Excuse me, I’ll take care of her.”

  Devon watched him head toward the family room, crooning in the baby’s ear as he went, and turned to catch Leona studying them.

  “That’s a great package,” Leona said. “A handsome hunk who loves kids and an adorable baby. They’ll knock the socks off Sara Davis.”

  “Nothing’s final yet,” Devon said. “Come have something to eat, and we’ll talk.”

  In the family room, Colin spread a blanket, then laid Amanda on the sofa and removed her plastic pants and wet diaper. “I didn’t know anybody still used cloth diapers these days,” he grumbled.

  “According to Amanda Donovan,” Leona said, “disposable diapers are an environmental disaster. She advocates cloth diapers only, dried in the sunshine.”

  Colin passed the wet diaper to Devon, who took it with a grimace, holding it at arm’s length.

  “I have a feeling,” he said, “that after washing a few loads of these, Mrs. Donovan may have a change of heart.”

  Leona grinned at him, then fixed Devon with a knowing smile. “I’d say she’s already had a change of heart.”

  “Leona” Heat crept across Devon’s face.

  When she returned from depositing the diaper in the pail in the laundry room, Leona sat ensconced on the sofa with Amanda gurgling and cooing on her lap, and Colin leaning over her shoulder, making faces at the child.

  While she worked the cork from a bottle of Chianti, Devon studied the picture they made, Leona looking like a doting grandma and Colin a proud father. His natural ease with the baby alleviated some of her own terror. Why hadn’t a man with such an obvious love of children settled down and produced a houseful of his own kids years ago?

  She poured the wine, then removed the casserole from the oven. “Come and get it.”

  Amanda’s eyelids sagged with sleep as Leona settled her in the carrier and set it near the table.

  Colin straightened and shoved his hands into his back pockets. “Sorry, but I promised Dad—”

  “You have to eat,” Devon said. “Mike wouldn’t want you to neglect your health for his sake. And after all the help you’ve given me today, feeding you is the least I can do.”

  Colin gazed at her flushed cheeks above the steaming dish. A perfect image of Little Susie Homemaker. But a homemaker who wanted to be rid of Amanda as soon as the child had played its part in furthering her career.

  His head told his feet to make tracks, but his stomach, enticed by the aroma of cheese and garlic bread, directed him toward the table, where he pulled out a chair for Leona.

  “Smells heavenly,” Leona said. “What is it?”

  “Pastitio,” Devon replied. “Greek lasagna.”

  Colin accepted the heaping plate she handed him. “Another of Gramma Donovan’s recipes?”

  She detected a trace of bitterness in his voice and wondered how she’d antagonized him. She hid her hurt feelings with a smile. “No, it’s made in a deli in Tarpon Springs.”

  “Wherever you found it,” Leona said, “it’s delicious. The food on the plane was abominable as usual, and I’m starved.” She demolished two servings while she maintained a running commentary on the latest Broadway shows.

  Devon kept her guests well supplied with food and drink, all the while aware of the restive disposition of the big man across from her. She racked her brain, trying to pinpoint what she had done to upset him, and concluded that concern for his father was causing his edgy behavior.

  When Devon had cleared the plates and served coffee, Leona brought her attache” case to the table. “Time to get down to work.”

  Colin laid his napkin aside and stood. “And time for me to leave.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mr. O’Reilly,” Leona said. “This concerns you, too.”

  “I haven’t decided whether to accept Devon’s proposition.” The coolness in his eyes made Devon shiver.

  Leona clutched his arm and tugged him down into his chair. “All the more reason for you to stay, so you’ll know the facts.”

  Devon stirred her coffee and avoided his piercing glance. “What’s the deal, Leona?”

  “A quarter million for a one-hour interview, to be filmed in thirty days.”

  Devon frowned. “I thought you said it was a Christmas special.”

  Leona patted her hand. “Quite right. They’ll need a couple of months to edit and complete the sound track, then the show will air in early December.”

  “That seems simple enough,” Devon said. “I just take Sara on a tour of the house, answer a few questions, introduce her to my husband and baby—and that’s it?”

  “Not exactly.” Leona dug into her case and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “Sara asked for a few specifics.”

  “Like what?” Devon’s glance flew to Colin’s face, but his stony expression didn’t waver.

  “You’ll need to decorate as if for Christmas,” Leona said.

  Devon nodded. “That’s easy enough.”

  “There’s more.” Leona handed her a clipping. “Remember the column you wrote about your wedding on the beach at sunset? It was one of Sara’s favorites. She’s asked to use footage from the videotapes.”

  Devon dropped the clipping. “What videotapes?”

  “From the ceremony.” Leona shuffled through the contents of her case and extracted a pen.

  “But there was no ceremony!”

  A muscle twitched in Colin’s jaw, and Devon couldn’t tell if he was angry or amused. He crossed his forearms on the table and leaned toward her. “’0 what a tangled web—’”

  “No need to throw quotes at me,” she snapped. “I know the predicament I’m in.”

  “Relax, both of you,” Leona said. “All these problems can be worked out. But first, how much did you offer Colin?”

  “Half.”

  “Half?” Leona’s voice cracked. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  Devon locked her gaze with the cold steel of Colin’s eyes. She didn’t want him doing her any favors. “Half, or the whole deal’s off.”

  Leona heaved a sigh of resignation. “That certainly makes divvying up easier. For that kind of money, Colin, you shouldn’t mind.”

  “I haven’t accepted yet.” His tone revealed none of his feelings.

  “Of course you’ll accept,” Leona said with a smile. “How could you turn down that much money for a few weeks’ work?”

  “On principle?” Colin returned her smile with a grin that never reached his eyes.

  “Nonsense,” Leona said. “It’s like an acting jobneither immoral nor illegal. Especially once you’re married.”

  “What!” Devon dropped her cup into its saucer, splashing coffee over the linen cloth. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “I’m outta here.” Colin started to rise, but Leona restrained him with a manicured hand.

  “It’s very simple,” she said. “We stage the seaside ceremony, based on the account in Amanda Donovan’s column, and videotape it. You two remain married, in name only, of course, until after the show airs, then quietly have the marriage annulled. That solves two problems. It gives us the needed tape footage and makes lies about your marital status unnecessary.”

  “You must think I’m an idiot, Ms. Wiggins.” Colin’s low voice barely concealed his anger. “Even if I agreed to this crazy deal, the legal fees alone would eat all my profits. I’ve been down that road before.”

  “Not to worry.” Leona dismissed his objection with a wav
e of her hand. “I guess Devon didn’t tell you I’m also an attorney. I’ll handle all the legal work as part of my regular commission.”

  “I don’t know, Leona.” Devon, too dazed to move, stared at the coffee stain spreading over the tablecloth. “This is getting more complicated than I’d anticipated.”

  “You can’t pass up this opportunity,” she said. “The name recognition, the money—it’s the chance of a lifetime.”

  The money. Devon glanced over at Amanda, sleeping peacefully in her carrier. An orphan, just as she had been. And although Aunt Bessie had loved and cared for her, she’d always longed to be part of a family with a mother and father, brothers and sisters. The income from the Davis show was her only hope for securing that kind of life for the little surprise bundle Farnsworth had virtually left on her doorstep.

  “You’re right, Leona,” she said. “I can’t pass this up.

  Disgust flickered across Colin’s face. “I never thought you would. It’s too important to your career.”

  “I tried to tell you—”

  Leona cut her off before she could finish. “What about you, Colin? Are you in?”

  He shook his head. “I just escaped one loveless marriage. I can’t think of any reason, not even 125,000 big ones, to dive into another.”

  “Don’t make up your mind now,” Leona said. “Think it over tonight.”

  “Time isn’t going to change my mind.” He shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. “Thanks for supper, Devon. I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow to finish the dining room.”

  Devon’s hopes plummeted at his refusal. She tried to convince herself her disappointment wasn’t personal. After all, the offer was only business.

  She walked him to the door. “Thanks for your help with Amanda today. I’m such a klutz, and the kid deserves better. I’m glad she had you.”

  The icy granite of his eyes softened. “She’s a sweetheart.”

  “Give my love to Mike. Tell him I’ll visit when he’s feeling better.” She closed the door behind him and folded her arms across her stomach, which had tumbled like an Olympic gymnast since Leona’s mention of marriage.