The Baby Invasion (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams)

by Conrad, Helen

  Cathy sighed. “No, it doesn’t. But that’s just what she did. So. Tell you what. If you find her, let me know where she is, okay?”

  Her caller didn’t enjoy her little joke. His voice got softer, but at the same time more menacing. “Lady, I guess I am going to have to pay you a visit.”

  Cathy’s throat was suddenly dry. Truth be told, she was terrified of coming face to face with this thug. “Who ... who are you ... exactly?”

  “You’ll see who I am when I get there.”

  She swallowed, her gaze darting about the room, seeking salvation-or at least a good idea.

  “I think I ought to warn you,” she said quickly. “My next door neighbor is a cop.” She picked up the entire phone and lugged it to the open sliding glass door. Luck was with her. Scott was watering his yard. “There he is now,” she hissed into the receiver.

  “Hi!” she called, pulling open the screen door and waving merrily. “Hi, Officer Carrington,” she added. “You going to be around today?”

  Very near the fence that separated their yards, Scott glared across at her. “Where would I go?” he called back. .

  “Great,” she responded loudly. “I may need you. Stay in touch.”

  Ignoring Scott’s startled look, she drew back into the house.

  “You see?” she hissed into the phone. “I’ve got the police at my beck and call. You’d better keep away from here.”

  “That cop can’t be with you all the time, lady. That moment will come when he’s looking the other way. And then ... pow!”

  “Pow?” she squeaked back. “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll find out. Better watch out! Better have the paramedics on call, lady! Pow!”

  The dial tone buzzed in her ear.

  “I will watch out for you, you slime ball,” she muttered as she put the telephone back where it belonged.

  She turned nervously, anxious to do something but unsure of what she could possibly do to remedy this mess that was brewing. One thing was becoming clear. She was either going to have to give up and call in the police or she was going to have to go and find April herself.

  The woman had to be somewhere. Maybe if she went looking for her, she’d find something out.

  “I’ll give you until tomorrow morning, April Meadows,” she murmured, clasping her hands together, her blue eyes troubled. “Then I move.”

  Scott stared after her long after she’d disappeared into the house again. Water ran through his plants, puddling in all the wrong places, and he barely noticed. He was fully involved in trying to explain to himself what had just happened.

  The woman had kicked him out of her house not ten minutes before. Now she was yoo-hooing from the place, telling him to “Stay in touch because she might need him.”

  Need him? He shook his head.

  No, this situation was definitely poison. He’d never wanted to get domestic, and that was the word that most perfectly described Cathy Feenstra. Domestic .

  He made a face. Babies didn’t mix with the Scott Carrington lifestyle.

  Never had, never would. It was funny how attractive he’d found Cathy, all the same. So attractive, in fact, he’d hardly been able to disguise it. The look of her, the scent of her clean body, was suddenly in his head and he shook it to rid himself of the wave of sensation that accompanied it.

  Trying to kiss her had been a big mistake. He didn’t need a woman like that. Especially when she didn’t seem to know herself what she wanted. One minute it was “Never darken my door again.” The next it was “Stick around, I may need you.”

  No, she had to be a little nuts.

  A little unbalanced. That did it. He turned off the water and rolled the hose back on the wheel with the air of a man who’d made up his mind.

  Yes, that did it. She was awfully cute, but she was definitely air conditioned between the ears. And she had too many babies, anyway. Time to get real here.

  He needed something else to do, something else to get his mind on. Maybe he ought to call one of his Carrington cousins. The town was crawling with them. Funny how he hadn’t seen any of them for ages.

  It wasn’t a conscious plan on his part, but somehow, over the last couple of years, he’d drawn away from his family. He blamed it on how hard he’d been working, how much time he had to spend out of town. And maybe there was actually something more to it. But that didn’t matter right now. He had an immediate problem and he needed an immediate answer.

  He knew what that problem was. It had been too long since he’d had the proper sort of female companionship. All he had to do was get out his little black book, pick a number, and his troubles would be over. He chuckled to himself as he went into the house. Yes, that was all he needed.

  The first obstacle to initiating his new plan was finding the little black book. It wasn’t next to the telephone, nor in the drawer with his checks and receipts. He looked in the liquor cabinet, beside the breadbox in the kitchen, and in his dresser drawers.

  No black book.

  When he sat down and tried to think where he might have left it last, the memories were vague. It had been an awfully long time since he’d used that book.

  It finally turned up at the back of his gardening cabinet. He got a warm feeling just holding it in his hand, turning it, feeling the soft leather.

  Ah, his little black book. How many wonderful evenings had started with it?

  Sitting down by the telephone, he began to thumb through it. Funny, he thought right away, how unfamiliar some-of the names were. There weren’t many that he could even assign faces to.

  But here was a beauty. Carol Lane. A redhead with a great sense of humor, as he remembered. He dialed her number.

  “Scott, is that really you? It’s been ages!”

  She sounded as redheaded as ever and they chatted for a few minutes. This was more like it. This was the way women usually responded.

  “I know this is short notice,” Scott said at last. “But I was wondering if you would like to join me for dinner tonight. We could try to rekindle some old flames.”

  “Dinner?” Her voice changed all of a sudden. “Scott, don’t you remember? I got married last summer.”

  That was just the beginning. Jennifer Garvey’s roommate informed Scott that she was trekking in the Himalayas and had fallen in love with a goatherd. Julie Brown was now Julie Bartok. When he called Florie Manning, a vocabulary-less child answered and he hung up without waiting to find out more.

  Finally he sat very still and stared sadly at his beloved black book. What was wrong with everyone? And why hadn’t he noticed when this change had come over them all?

  When he thought back over the last year he began to get an inkling of where things had gone wrong. How often had he come back from a trip and spent the weekend reading and watching sports on TV instead of getting out and mixing with the singles crowd?

  His biggest mistake had been getting involved with that mountain climbing group. The adventures in the Sierra Nevadas had been a lot of fun, but not too many women had wanted to come along. He’d let himself get out of touch. Now it was going to take real effort to get back into the swim of things.

  Effort paid off: After another half hour of calling, he found Tawny Spires willing to join him for dinner. He vaguely remembered her as a slinky femme fatale he’d met at a New Year’s Eve party. But she seemed to remember him more clearly.

  “I’ll be there at seven,” she promised breathlessly. “With bells on.”

  Bells he could do without, but he spent the rest of the afternoon happily preparing for her visit. Steaks on the barbecue, he thought. Twilight by the side of his swimming pool, golden wine glistening in crystal goblets as the sun went down over the bay. A little mood music to set the tone.

  Tawny arrived right on time. She was tall and pretty and dressed in a low-cut purple sarong—not quite the sort of girl his mother had in mind when she was giving him advice on getting married. But that wasn’t the point, was it? Scott let her in and
smiled and said all the right things, then wondered why he’d invited her.

  “Oooh, your house is so nice,” she gushed. “I just love rocks. Where did you find all these rocks?”

  His smile was strained as he took his rare piece of Burmese jade from her hands and put it back in the case where it belonged.

  “Minerals,” he said evenly. “They’re not rocks. They’re minerals.”

  “Do you go rock collecting a lot? I just love theme picnics.”

  He frowned. Was there really a brain inside that pretty head?

  “I collected most of these minerals all over the world, from dealers,” he told her. “They aren’t the sort of thing you just find lying around these days.”

  She nodded happily. ‘’I’m a collector, too. I collect matchbook covers. I’ve got matchbooks from every bar in Bakersfield and I’ve got a good start on all of Kern County, too.”

  She smiled blissfully. “I spend a whole lot of time collecting.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Most people are. Would you like to see it some time?”

  He was just a bit confused. “See what?” he asked suspiciously.

  She blinked vacantly. “My matchbook collection. I’ve got them all pasted up on poster board. It’s truly awesome.”

  He nodded dully. “I guess there are a lot of bars in Kern County, huh?”

  “You better believe it.”

  Somehow the evening was beginning to stretch out long and painfully before him. But he was determined to have a good time, if only to prove to himself that he didn’t need someone like Cathy Feenstra in his life.

  He led Tawny out into the backyard. He’d hooked up his radio and speakers to flood the place with soft music and he’d strewn gardenias in the pool. The coals were warming in the barbecue. The champagne was chilling in an ice bucket.

  Tawny took it all in at a glance and said, “I hope you don’t have mosquitoes.”

  Scott felt like snarling at that point, but he held himself in check. He found himself starting to turn toward the neighbor’s house and he stopped that, too.

  Instead, he took Tawny’s purse, set it inside the door and led her by the hand to the patio loveseat overlooking the shimmering waters of the pool. He was going to enjoy the evening if it killed him.

  They sat, they sipped champagne, and he tried to develop a conversation. But it turned out Tawny considered herself a woman of action, not words.

  “Let’s dance,” she said impatiently, right in the middle of a sentence of his regarding the beauty of the evening.

  She jumped up, switched the radio station to dance music and began a seductive hootchy-kootch before Scott’s eyes.

  “Come on, honey,” she cried. “Let’s see you move!”

  Scott couldn’t help it. His first reaction was to glance next door. Sure enough, there was a young face at one of the upstairs windows.

  “Stop,” he told Tawny, moving quickly to block the view of her frenzied dance. He’d never seen anything so grotesque in his life. Had this sort of thing turned him on once upon a time? Unbelievable.

  “You can’t do that here. There are children next door.”

  “Children!” She grimaced and sagged to a dispirited stop. “Then let’s go inside.”

  “No.” He switched the station back to soft music. “No, I have everything set up out here. You sit down. I’ll start the steaks.”

  She flopped down and he put the meat on the grill. This wasn’t working and he knew why. He still had Cathy Feenstra and those kids of hers on his mind. He had to erase them totally. That was the only answer. Mind control. He could do it if he tried.

  He stared at the wall. Mind control. Concentration. He could do it--make his mind totally blank where Cathy and the children were concerned.

  Suddenly one of the babies began to cry. The windows upstairs were open and the sound came down upon them like a steady breeze from hell.

  “There’s a baby crying.” Tawny looked at him accusingly.

  Steady. Mind control. Concentration.

  “Pay no attention.” He dropped down beside her and forced himself to smile. He would not look at Cathy’s house again, no matter what. “Now, where were we?”

  Tawny tried to smile back but it was obvious that something was bothering her.

  “Now there are two babies crying,” she informed him, as though he couldn’t hear for himself. “Why can’t they close the windows or something?” She twisted nervously in her seat. “Can you call the police about babies crying? I mean isn’t that disturbing the peace or something?”

  “Ignore it,” he advised. “If you don’t let it into your mind, it isn’t happening. Listen to the music.”

  Tawny made the attempt for three or four seconds, then sighed. It was just too hard for her.

  “I think there are three babies crying now,” she said sadly, her fingers tangled together in a knot. “It’s getting louder and louder. I just can’t stand it. Can’t we go inside or something?”

  Temptation was strong to look at Cathy’s house, but Scott was standing firm.

  “You can’t give in to this sort of thing,” he told her sternly, not realizing he was speaking mostly to himself. “You’ve got to make your mind strong. You’ve got to keep control.”

  “Listen. I don’t like babies. I don’t like to be reminded of babies. Tell you what. Let’s go get a drink somewhere adult.”

  He shook his head, looking at her and frowning. Here was a woman after his own heart. Why was it that he cringed when he heard her say that about children? Wasn’t she just saying exactly what he would say himself? And yet, it sounded pretty rotten.

  “That would be giving in,” he said stoutly. “We’ll stay right here and fight this thing.”

  Tawny was looking over his shoulder and suddenly her eyes widened with astonishment.

  “Now there’s one on the roof. Can you believe it? The nerve of some people!”

  Scott’s hands were clenched in white-knuckled fists; he was forcing himself not to turn around. He had no idea what the woman could be talking about and he didn’t want to think it through.

  “Ignore it,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Don’t pay any attention.”

  But Tawny seemed captivated and repelled.

  “Your neighbors are crazy. Why would they let a baby play on the roof like that? What if he fell or something?”

  Scott blinked. The woman had to be delusional.

  She looked at him, then back at the house next door. Exasperated, she shrugged. “Oh well, at least he’s not one of the ones who’s crying.” She sighed. “I just hope the kid makes it. That’s all. It looks dangerous to me.”

  “Aga doo,” came a little voice floating in over the music.

  Suddenly stricken, Scott whirled. Beanie was on the roof of the garage.

  “Oh my God!”

  The garage was attached to the main house and he was about ten feet away from an open window he must have crawled out of. He was on the edge of a flat part of the roof, just inches from the slippery slope.

  In the seconds that Scott stared, horrified, Cathy was out the window and beginning a careful climb out on the roof toward the baby.

  Scott flew to the fence.

  “Cathy, wait!”

  She glanced down at him and shook her head. There was a white line around her mouth, but she was trying to remain calm.

  “No, listen, I can handle this,” she reassured him, her voice shaking. “You go on back to your~” She glanced at Tawny and her eyes widened ever so slightly “-your guest,” she said quickly before turning back to her task. “I’ve got this.”

  “No! Wait for me.”

  He shoved on the loose boards of the fence, jamming his way into her yard, then moved quickly to position beneath the spot on the roof where Beanie sat happily watching the commotion.

  “Take it easy, little guy,” he told the baby firmly. “Mama’s coming to get you.”

  Beanie laughed and pointed a w
et fist his way.

  “Aga, aga!” he shouted joyfully, bouncing on his diaper-padded bottom.

  “No! Beanie, stay where you are!”

  But the bouncing had begun him on a slow descent down the steep part of the roof. He gurgled happily as though he were sure this was part of a ride he was going to like.

  “No!” A scream seemed to tear at Cathy’s throat. “No, oh no!”

  She made a desperate lunge in his direction, but she was too late. He was in the midst of a slide toward the ground. She stared in horror as he slid away from her, terror freezing her.

  But Scott’s arms were there. Beanie dropped right into them. Cathy stared harder, not sure if she was dreaming. Yes. He was safe. She felt every bone turn to water.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Scott called up to her. “I’ve got him.”

  His image swam as tears filled her eyes.

  “Thank God,” she murmured. And Scott Carrington, she added silently.

  “Can you get back inside?” he was asking anxiously. “Listen, stay where you are. I’ll come up and…”

  “No.” She waved his suggestion aside. “I’m all right. Really. I can make it.” She looked down again at the man holding her baby and she felt relief sweeping over her in a hot wave.

  “Just hold him. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Scott watched as she inched her way in through the window, then he grimaced at the child in his arms. The kid ought to be spanked. He definitely ought to be taught a lesson. It was time to be tough.

  He glared at Beanie. Beanie grinned back, his gums showing tiny teeth erupting.

  “You.. .you.. .you little rascal,” was the harshest Scott could do. And then he found himself grinning, too. The kid was irresistible.

  “Hey, listen.” It was Tawny, peering over the fence with a pout. “Put that kid away and come on back, honey.”

  “In a minute,” he said vaguely, turning as Cathy came out the sliding glass door to take Beanie from him.

  “Oh, you bad little boy,” she cried, holding him very tightly and closing her eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”