Baby Bootcamp

by Mallory Kane

  “Yes, sir.” Matt dutifully signed the forms and handed them back to the sheriff. “What about the crime scene investigators? Did they turn up anything?”

  “They found the baseball cap. It’d been kicked up under the lunch counter, and it was trampled, but still intact—for the most part. Probably no chance of getting a fingerprint.”

  “Or DNA?”

  “Doesn’t look good. We’ve got the bullet, though.”

  Matt frowned. “Damn it, Sheriff, you could have told me that say—” he looked at his watch “—an hour ago when I first walked in here.”

  “And the cartridge. Although it was trampled, too.”

  “The cartridge, too? How long were you planning to hold on to this news?”

  “Till just about now.” Sheriff Hale sat up and Matt saw the glint of excitement in his eyes. “The bullet was under the makeshift stage, just like I figured it’d be. After it went through the bodyguard, it didn’t have enough momentum to stick in the wall.”

  “What is it? What does CSI say about it?”

  “It’s from a 9 mm,” the sheriff said, watching Matt. “But get this. The cartridge was crushed, but the team managed to read what was on the headstamp. Here’s what it looks like.” Hale drew a circle and filled in letters and numbers.

  “There,” Matt said, pointing. “That 03 printed right there? That’s the date the cartridge was manufactured. That means it’s military issue!” Matt blew out his breath in a whoosh.

  “Whoever this guy is, he’s got connections. It’s possible for a civilian to get those, but it’s not easy.”

  “The crime scene boys are seeing if they can lift a print off the cartridge, and my men are combing the area right around town in case he dropped the gun as he ran.”

  “Damn it. He was tall, with that baseball cap on. He could be ex-military, and he was carrying. I should have been able to pick him out of the crowd. Hell, I should have smelled him,” Matt said disgustedly.

  “Come on, Matt. Don’t beat yourself up. There was no way we could keep up with every single person in the crowd.”

  “Well, if there’s anything on those surveillance disks, I’m going to find it.”

  “I sure hope so,” Hale said. He pulled a file folder toward him and opened it as Matt headed out the door.

  Back at the café, he started up the stairs and met Glo coming down. “There you are. Valerio just got a delivery of several cases of chicken. He could use some help getting it out of the van and hauling it down to the basement freezer.”

  “How’s Faith doing? And the baby?”

  “They’re both fine.”

  “I’ll just run up—”

  Glo put out a hand. “You’ll just go help Valerio. Faith’s feeding Kaleigh.”

  His face burning with embarrassment, he turned around on the stairs. “Yes, ma’am.”

  It took Matt and Valerio three trips through the kitchen, across the café’s dining room and down the stairs to the basement to finish storing the meat in the big freezer chest.

  Matt sat down on a chair in the basement and mopped his forehead. “How do you do it?”

  Valerio grinned at Matt and flexed his biceps. “Takes me twice as long by myself, but it’s good exercise.”

  “You got that right. Too bad this basement isn’t a walk-out,” Matt said. “It sure would help if you could drive around and bring the stuff straight in.” He looked around. The basement was well lit and equipped with an industrial-sized freezer that took up one entire wall, a bank of heavy steel shelves where canned goods were stored and a large metal safe, complete with a numbered dial.

  “I worked in a couple of restaurants growing up,” Matt went on, “and this is one of the neatest storerooms I’ve ever seen. But I gotta ask, how in hell did Faith get that monster of a freezer down here? And what’s that?” He pointed to a large metal safe, complete with a numbered dial.

  “Just what it looks like.”

  “What it looks like is that Faith could open her own bank. Where did it come from, and how did it get down here?”

  “Can’t tell you that. The safe and the freezer have been here as long as I’ve worked here, and I started working for Faith’s abuela, Señora Eliza, fifteen years ago.” Valerio sighed. “I’d retired from the air force, and my wife died soon after, leaving me with two boys.”

  “Two boys,” Matt repeated. “What ages?”

  “They were four and six months when their mother died. Sonny is nineteen now, and Carlos is almost sixteen.” Valerio’s black eyes lit up as he talked about his boys.

  “That’s great. I’d like to meet them.”

  “You should. You should,” he said.

  “So you started working for Faith’s grandmother back then. Faith has told me about her. She died a couple of years ago, right?”

  Valerio nodded.

  “What about her mother—and her dad?”

  Valerio picked up a case of ketchup and headed up the basement stairs. “Grab that case of mayonnaise,” he told Matt. “We’re about out again.”

  Matt hoisted the case and followed Valerio. When they got upstairs and set down their loads, Valerio turned to Matt.

  “From what I’ve heard, Eliza and William Scott lived in this house for many years. Eliza made the downstairs into a café after William died around 1968 or 1967. Faith’s mom would have been around six or so. I started working for Señora Eliza around 1980, just about the time Mary left. Six years later, she returned, pregnant with Faith.”

  “What about Faith’s father?” Matt asked, fearing he knew the answer.

  “Never saw hide nor hair of him. Word was that he was a drifter. He showed up in town, Faith’s mother fell head over heels in love and followed him.”

  There it was. Yet another reason for Faith not to trust him. Not only was her first serious relationship with a drifter, a con man and a liar but her mother’s had been, too.

  At this point, even if Matt told Faith who he really was, she’d probably feel doubly betrayed. There was no way she’d ever—Matt shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought that almost made it into his conscious brain.

  “Que pasa, amigo?” Valerio said. “Got a headache or something?”

  “What?” Matt asked, then realized what Valerio meant. “No. Just thinking about something. So is there anything else you need right now?”

  Valerio eyed him closely. “Not as bad as you need to check on Faith,” he said.

  “I just thought I’d look in on her. Then I’ve got something I need to do.” He picked up the disks from the counter where he’d left them while he was helping Valerio, left the kitchen and headed for the stairs.

  As soon as he made sure Faith and the baby were settled in, he was going to go to his apartment and study the footage. Somewhere on one of the disks was the shooter, and Matt intended to find him.

  FAITH SNUGGLED BACK AGAINST the mound of pillows Glo had surrounded her with and looked down at Kaleigh, who’d just finished drinking her fill. Now she was waving her arms and screwing her face up into a little scowl.

  “Your little tummy is full now, isn’t it little girl? Yes it is. You need to burp, Kaleigh?” Faith murmured. “Is that what’s bothering you? Hmm?”

  She lifted her and placed her against her left shoulder and patted her back. As she tapped lightly on Kaleigh’s back, she pressed her cheek against her daughter’s impossibly soft skin. The feel of the precious cheek against hers sent a wave of emotion through her that she’d never felt before. It was partly thrilling, partly terrifying and overlaid with a depth of love that even twenty-four hours ago Faith would have said was impossible. Nobody could love that much.

  But she knew better now. She did love Kaleigh that much—that much and more. A lump grew in her throat, and tears pricked her eyes.

  “Hey, Kaleigh. Hey, baby,” she whispered as she patted the baby’s back. “Me and you, we’re going to do just fine, aren’t we?” She was rewarded with a fairly loud belch.

  “O
oh, that was a good one,” she chuckled. “Who knew such a dainty little lady could belch like that?” She lay Kaleigh back down in her arm and took the edge of the burping cloth and wiped her little mouth.

  “There you go,” she said. “That’s a good girl.” Faith closed her eyes, just for a minute, and hummed a wordless lullaby that her mother had sung to her when she was little.

  “It’s you and me, Kaleigh,” she said softly, moving the baby gently back and forth in a rocking motion. “Just you and me. We don’t need anybody, do we? Especially a man.” Faith felt sadness push its way into her heart at those words. “We can make it on our own, can’t we, sweetie?”

  MATT MADE IT TO THE DOOR of Faith’s bedroom in time to hear her say “especially a man. We can make it on our own, can’t we, sweetie?”

  The words cut a deep gash into a section of his heart he hadn’t even realized was there. He knew it now, though, because it hurt like hell. For a second, he hesitated, wondering if he should come back later. He really didn’t want to interrupt Faith’s sweet, intimate moment with her child.

  “Glo? Matt? Who’s out there?”

  That did it. She’d heard him. “It’s me,” he said, stepping around the door facing and pasting a big smile on his face. The sight before him completely shattered the smile and filled up his heart with longing.

  Faith was sitting up in bed in a pale blue gown, holding Kaleigh in her arms. Her pale blond hair was braided, but wisps and tendrils had escaped and were waving around her face, which glowed with happiness and serenity.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling at him.

  Matt swallowed and tried to speak, but his throat was closed up. Not only was he acting like a teenager in the throes of his first crush but he was experiencing a whole different set of emotions that threw him back in time by seventeen years, when his mom brought the twin baby girls home from the hospital.

  He’d known from the first moment he saw his baby sisters that he wanted to be a father. He loved babies. They were so sweet when they were infants. And every day was a new discovery, a new adventure from finding their fingers and toes to their first word to their first steps and on and on and on.

  “Matt? Is everything all right?” Faith’s brows drew down into a frown.

  “Sure,” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “Sure. Everything’s fine. I just wanted to check on you. Make sure you got settled in okay.”

  “Glo took really good care of me.” Faith shifted in the bed.

  “What’s the matter?” Matt asked.

  “It’s nothing. I’d like to put Kaleigh down for a nap, but my gown is twisted, and I don’t want to disturb her by moving around too much. She’s asleep.” Faith looked down at her baby then up at Matt.

  The love scripted on her beautiful face took Matt’s breath away. “I could—” he started, then cleared his throat again “—I’ll take her. I can put her in the bassinet for you.”

  Faith lifted her chin and stared into Matt’s eyes. “Can you?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Remember, I told you about my twin baby sisters? I took care of them from the minute they came home from the hospital. You could ask my mom. I’m great with newborns and one-year-olds, and toddlers—” He stopped when Faith’s eyes widened and then she blinked.

  He shouldn’t have said that. He’d gone too far, implying he’d be around when Kaleigh was a year old or even two.

  “That’s, um, good,” Faith said uncertainly. “So you know you have to support her head, right?”

  Matt leaned over to slide his hand under Kaleigh’s head, which put him within kissing distance of Faith’s mouth. To his chagrin and sudden discomfort, he actually thought about it for a second.

  Faith’s eyes were downcast, watching the baby. Her long, pale lashes shaded her eyes, and one of the wisps of hair that had escaped her braid tickled his nose. But before he lost his head, not to mention control of a certain portion of his anatomy, he turned his thoughts back to the baby, whose fine, blond hair felt like angel’s hair in his palm.

  “Okay, Miss Kaleigh,” he whispered. “Let’s get you to bed for a nap. Your mommy needs to rest, too.” He lifted the tiny bundle and set it in the crib. When he turned back to Faith, she was watching him with an odd expression on her face.

  “There. See?” he said. “She’s just fine.”

  Faith nodded. “I see,” she said, her voice raspy.

  Matt avoided her gaze by smoothing the bedspread and patting it. “Now you need to get some rest. I’m going to—”

  “Stay,” Faith murmured. “Stay here for a while.”

  “I—”

  “Just while I take a nap. I mean, I don’t want to keep you if you’re busy. It’s just that Glo’s got to help Valerio with the cooking, and I’d rather have someone here. In the hospital, the nurses were always there. I’m terrified that if I go to sleep I won’t hear Kaleigh crying.”

  Matt wanted to say, “trust me, you’ll hear her. Those tiny lungs can wake the whole building.” But when he looked at Faith, her eyes were closed and her lips were slightly parted.

  She’d already gone to sleep.

  For longer than he would ever admit, even to himself, he watched her sleep. Sitting there, beside her bed, watching as her chest rose and fell with each breath and her eyelids flickered with dreams, Matt finally admitted to himself what he had never dared to even think before.

  He was falling in love with Faith. He was already in love with Kaleigh. It had taken her no more than a second to wrap his heart around her tiny little finger.

  It had taken longer with Faith. Or maybe it had just taken longer for him to admit it. The first time he’d ever seen her she’d taken his breath away. She’d glided out of the kitchen with a tray of full cups of coffee held at shoulder height. After she’d handed out the coffee she’d turned to him at the lunch counter and asked if he wanted some.

  His throat had turned as dry as it was right now when she’d pinned him with her blue eyes and that small, shy smile.

  And right now, with her lashes resting on her cheeks and her lips parted in sleep, she still stole his breath.

  Oh, boy, he thought, exerting all his energy to resist touching her cheek. He was in big trouble.

  Chapter Twelve

  Matt didn’t mind staying with Faith while she took a nap. It felt comfortable and somehow right to sit in the living room while Faith and Kaleigh slept.

  He was watching the third and last disk of the footage from the town hall meeting when he heard Kaleigh whine. He jumped up and headed into the bedroom.

  The baby was awake and gearing up to cry.

  “Hey, Kaleigh,” he whispered, darting a look over at Faith to be sure she was still asleep. “Let’s go into the living room, okay? I’ll rock you, and you can help me figure out which one of a hundred people on the TV is the bad guy. Okay?”

  He picked up Kaleigh and felt her diaper to see if she was wet. She was. Still talking to her in a whisper, he carried her out to the living room and pulled the bedroom door behind him. On the floor by the door, he spotted a diaper bag, and using the coffee table, he made quick work of changing Kaleigh’s diaper.

  “There you go,” he whispered close to her ear. “Now let’s you and me watch some TV while Mommy sleeps.”

  Kaleigh started to whine again, so Matt put her against his shoulder and patted her back until she burped.

  Then he sat down in the wooden rocking chair and settled Kaleigh in his arm. He started up the DVD player again. He’d been watching the footage on Mute so it wouldn’t wake Faith or the baby.

  As the camera panned the crowd, many of whom he didn’t know, but whose faces he was becoming familiar with, he leaned forward slightly. After watching two sets of footage of the same event, he recognized the farmer in his mid-sixties who was asking Governor Lockhart a question. The shot was about to be fired—in about five seconds.

  With the sound off, all Matt saw was the reaction of the camera operator and the crowd. The camera wavered fo
r a few seconds until the cameraman recovered from the shock of the gunshot. Then it straightened. By then, heads were ducking, some people were turning toward the sound of the shot and others had started pushing through the crowd.

  From this camera’s vantage point he saw a hand with a microphone go up, fall and then go up again.

  Matt shook his head. “We were lucky no one was trampled, Kaleigh,” he said. “Especially your mommy, although she almost was. That gunshot is why you’re already here. I don’t think you were scheduled to make your appearance for another four or five weeks.

  “Watch,” he told the infant. “In a minute, you’ll see your mommy and you. Of course you’ll be on the inside of your mommy instead of—” He paused as he watched the screen. He was seeing something he hadn’t seen on the other two disks.

  Instead of swerving the camera toward the stage and the injured bodyguard, this cameraman swept the panicked crowd. He was obviously nervous, so the camera wavered nauseatingly and swung much faster than normal, but he did manage to pan the entire inside of the diner before he focused on the front doors.

  Matt sat up straight. There had to be at least a split second of the shooter on that piece of film.

  “Let’s watch that again,” he whispered to Kaleigh. When he looked down, the big beautiful eyes were closed and her tiny lips were parted. She looked just like her mother. Matt bent his head and pressed a tender kiss to the precious, brand-new forehead. Its softness raised a lump in his throat.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmured. “Just like your mommy.” He stood carefully and carried Kaleigh back to her crib and laid her in it.

  Her little brow knitted a bit, but then she went right back into her deep sleep.

  Matt pressed Rewind on the remote and waited several seconds before stopping it. Then he studied the remote control, hoping to find a button that would run the footage forward in slow motion. He didn’t find one. so he ran it again at regular speed.

  This camera had been positioned closer to the stage so that shots of the governor at the podium necessarily included part of the crowd. Matt played the footage for a few seconds then paused, studying the crowd, then pressed Play again and repeated the sequence.