“No!” Reaching his arms toward Scott, he called out, “Dad-dy!”
Cathy gasped, staring down at her child, then turned on Scott accusingly. “You taught him to say that!”
“So what if I did?” he retorted, laughter beginning to creep into his eyes. “You ought to thank me. Some people have to hire tutors to get their babies to talk. I did it for free.”
She stared at him. Scott had taught Beanie to call him daddy. The man who never wanted children was adopting her son. It didn’t make sense.
Cathy shook her head, confused. “But...why?”
He stared back for a moment. Beanie was still struggling in her arms, whimpering, “No, no.”
Scott came forward and held out his arms to the boy, who lunged for him.
“Here,” he said. “Let me try.” He took the baby and the small arms reached for his neck.
Beanie’s face was all smiles. “Dad-dy,” he said lovingly. “Dad-dy.”
Cathy watched in wonder. “Why?” she repeated.
He turned to look at her again, his eyes luminous. Half smiling, he reached out to touch her hair as though he was grabbing a star out of a passing galaxy.
“Because I want to be his daddy, Cathy,” he told her simply. “I want to be the man in all your lives.”
She reached out to keep from falling. She was dizzy. She was dreaming. She had to be.
Only, this was better than her dreams ever were, because instead of imagining his arm coming around her shoulders, his breath against her cheek, his heart beating against her, here it was, in the flesh.
“Scott!”
“I thought I could live without the bunch of you. I tried. I’ve sat here for the last few weeks in this lonely house, staring at the telephone and telling myself not to call you, that you didn’t really want me in your life.”
“Oh no, Scott, that’s all wrong.” She looked stricken. She reached a hand toward him imploringly. “I want you. I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you!”
He gazed at her fiercely, his dark eyes demanding the truth. “Are you sure, Cathy?” he asked, his voice low with emotion.
She couldn’t speak. Tears of joy welled in her eyes.
“Oh, Scott!”
He put Beanie down gently on the ground, then turned and caught her as she came into his arms, kissing her with such need, such devotion, he left her breathless.
“I love you,” he said, his voice ragged and rough. “Oh God, Cathy, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.” She touched his face. “From the very first.” Her blue eyes darkened. “But Scott, you know the children have to be my first priority. Until they’re grown.”
He pulled her close. “Don’t worry about that. The funny thing is, I had the best time of my life being with you all on that trip to Tahoe.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He pressed his face into her hair.
“I learned that it isn’t children that I don’t like. It’s being trapped. And joining your family is a choice I’m making, Cathy. No one is forcing it on me. I know exactly what I’m getting into.”
“Aga doo,” said a little voice from the kitchen.
They looked over and saw Beanie with the cereal box in his hands, joyfully emptying the entire contents onto the floor. He looked up and grinned, waving the box at them.
“Aga Dad-dy!” he improvised, and laughed.
They looked at each other and laughed, too. Scott felt a swelling in his chest that took his breath away. It had to be love.
For just a moment, he thought of his mother. Oh Lord, she would be proud. Finally. Because when you came right down to it, he’d finally realized a solemn truth. What his mother had wanted was for him to be happy and fulfilled. Nothing more. And now, it was coming true.
“So you think you know what you’re getting into, do you?” Cathy teased. “I don’t think you know the half of it, mister.” Her arms twined around his neck and her body molded itself to his, her eyes growing smoky with longing. “Not the half of it.”
“That’s exactly the way I like it,” he returned, his mouth only inches from hers. “It’ll be so much fun finding out the rest.”
Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams
Book 1-Husband Wanted:Will Train
Book 2-The Baby Invasion
Book 3-Waiting for Someone Like You
Available on Kindle
Coming soon
Book 4-Tick Tock, Baby Clock
Book 5-Jilted at the Altar
Book 6- In a Marrying State of Mind
Destiny Bay~Island Magic~6 books
*** *** *** ***
From
DoorKnock Publishing
*** *** ***
Also by Helen Conrad:
Destiny Bay-Forever Yours
Book 1-My Little Runaway
Book 2-Wife For a Night
Book 3-Too Scared to Breathe
Book 4-Make Believe Wife
Book 5-Promoted to Wife
Book 6-Not the Marrying Kind
Destiny Bay Box Set: Books 1 − 3
My Little Runaway, Wife for a Night, Too Scared to Breathe
Destiny Bay Box Set: Books 4 − 6
Make Believe Wife, Promoted To Wife, Not the Marrying Kind
An Excerpt From
WAITING FOR SOMEONE LIKE YOU
BY
HELEN CONRAD
Destiny Bay~Baby Dreams~Book 3
Chapter One
A grand seduction. That was what Ted had told Kat she needed to pull off to get to the bottom of this.
“Hey, you’re a beautiful woman,” he’d claimed when she’d said he must be joking. “Be provocative. Let your sensual instincts romp. Make him think you’ll play his game.”
Yeah, she was the great seducer alright. She glanced at her reflection in the mirrored wall as she followed the manager into the empty restaurant. She made a face at herself. She looked more like she should be playing the female lead in “Oklahoma!”
“Is this corner secluded enough, senorita?” the manager asked.
The manager in his sleek black suit and crisp white shirt was pointing out a dark corner of the hotel restaurant. It was secluded, all right. It was also dingy and depressing.
Kat wished Ted hadn’t talked her into this. She wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. But the invitation had been made, and there was no taking it back now. She might as well do it right, if she was going to do it at all.
Smiling apologetically, she shook her head, setting in motion the natural sway of her warm blond curls. “I’m sorry, that just isn’t quite what I had in mind.”
She glanced around the empty dining room, contemplating the choices. The late-morning sun was slanting in through the glass, casting golden beams on the white linen tablecloths and sending rainbows of sparks through the crystal goblets. It was a lovely restaurant, one of the best here at the resort hotel in Nueva Bahia, a little corner of coastal California that almost seemed as though it still belonged to Mexico.
“Oh, here. This looks better.”
She led the manager to a booth surrounded by a semicircular planter. The booth faced the window overlooking the tranquil bay with its tiny islands and resort cabanas.
“Yes, this will be perfect.” She smiled at the manager, her warm dark eyes a contrast to her blond hair. “But I will need some fresh flowers in this planter. These pothos have seen better days.”
He hesitated. “But, senorita...”
“Here.” Digging into the pocket of her long, embroidered skirt, she came up with some crisp bills. “Will this cover it?”
His face was immediately wreathed in a satisfied smile as he accepted her offering. “Of course, senorita. I will take care of it right away.”
“Thank you.” Funny how money always changed everything. And that was just what this was all about, wasn’t it?
Money, the root of all evil. She shivered, then put her hand over her heart and steadied herself.
&nbs
p; The manager returned quickly with violet irises and yellow daffodils in a lovely arrangement for the center of the table, and pots of bright red geraniums which he deftly settled in among the pothos in the planter. Kat stood back to examine the results and smiled. She’d never been one for domestic decorations, but this was sort of fun.
“It is too bad, Senorita Clay, that your mother is ill and cannot join you,” said the manager as he worked.
“Yes.” Kat felt like a hypocrite. If it weren’t for her mother’s headache, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity for this little scheme.
“But Colonel Carrington, he will like this, no?” the manager commented as he passed her on his way to the kitchen.
Kat’s smile faltered. She was getting nervous again. Mentally, she steeled herself.
“Stay calm,” she whispered, touching her cool fingertips to her hot cheeks. She was going to do this right. She was completely committed.
Committed—ha! That was exactly what she should be for having agreed to go along with this. She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath.
“Looks good. What’s going on?”
Kat glanced up. For just a moment she thought the handsome, blue-eyed man in the slightly rumpled suit was flirting. His eyes were brimming with amusement, and he had a singular air of confidence that attractive men often had, a basic assumption that he would be welcome anywhere he chose to intrude with his presence.
Her eyes narrowed and it was on the tip of her tongue to say something caustic and put him in his place, but then she realized he must work in the restaurant. After all, it was still a few minutes before opening time for the dining room. He was just an employee trying to be helpful.
“Oh, this?” She waved a hand toward the table with all its extra foliage. “It’s very important that I get just the right tone here,” she told him earnestly. “I want my guest comfortable. I want him to feel completely at home, completely relaxed. I just came in a little early to make sure everything was set up right.”
“Ah.” The handsome man nodded wisely, his intense blue eyes gleaming with amusement. “A seduction, I take it.”
Kat was startled by that characterization of her plans. Could he read her mind, or was this something they had here all the time?
“Oh. No, not at all.” Heavens, she certainly hoped no one else had assumed anything like that.
She looked at him again, taking in the wide shoulders, the dark hair cut precisely but generously, the grooves that had once been dimples, carved deeply beside the sensual mouth, the brilliant blue eyes that seemed too wise, too knowing. A little ripple of appreciation ran through her, but she squelched it. She had to keep her mind on the job at hand.
“More of a... an audition,” she decided at last with a quick grin, running her fingers through her full blond curls in a last-minute freshening of her abandoned hairstyle. “That’s it. A tryout”
She frowned at the picture the table made, trying to concentrate on that and wishing this distractingly handsome man would take a hint and leave her alone with her thoughts. She needed a bit of mental preparation now. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be the perceptive type. Instead of excusing himself, he leaned back against the planter and watched her, his blue eyes still crinkling with humor.
“Then what’s the audition for?” he asked chattily.
She blinked at him. “It’s personal and private,” she said in what she hoped was a quelling tone.
“Ah “ His grin was slow and lazy. “Then it is a seduction, after all. Tell me, do you audition all your potential escorts this way?”
She gave him a gentle glare and shook her head dismissively. There was no point arguing with the man. She just wanted him gone. She frowned with even more concentration at her table, wondering if there was anything missing.
“Are you accepting applications?” he went on, seemingly teasing her.
She looked up again, letting her annoyance show. “What?”
He was oblivious, still in the best of moods.
“For the job as your beau. If you’re auditioning this man, I’d like to know how to get in on the action.” He gave a lazy shrug that made him look exceptionally attractive and debonair.
“I can escort like crazy, and I’ve got experience in chair holding and ordering French wines.”
He gave her a long, appreciative glance that took in everything about her, from head to toe. With his easy self-confidence, he didn’t mind letting her in on exactly how much he relished what he saw. At the same time, his eyes were full of laughter.
“Is there a waiting list?”
She blinked at him. His casual examination had thrown her for a bit of a loop and she’d only taken in about half of what he’d said. What on earth was he talking about?
“You want to be an escort?” she asked in bewilderment. “Do they really have jobs like that? But... but what about your job here?” She looked into his eyes and knew he was teasing her again. In exasperation she glanced around the room. “Shouldn’t you be maitre d’ing or something?”
He looked nonplussed. “No. Why?”
She gestured toward the entry lobby. “People are queuing up,” she informed him. “It’s time to open the restaurant.”
“Ah.” He snapped back his cuff and examined his watch. “You’re right. I guess I’ll go ahead and take my table.”
She frowned, still confused. “You...you don’t work here?”
“Work here?” He looked about him with a bemused smile. “No, I’m afraid not. I only arrived at the airport an hour ago.”
“Oh.” She felt foolish and then annoyed, because she was pretty sure he’d led her down that prickly path on purpose just to see her stub her toe. “Sorry,” she mumbled, watching him from beneath lowered lashes as he walked away.
He was walking out of her life.
And a good thing, too. Just this short encounter had convinced her this was a man who could complicate things—such as emotions, commitments, plans for the future—with very little effort.
Still, she couldn’t ignore him. He had that indefinable sense of presence that lit up a room and caused heads to turn. In all her years working for the newspaper at home, she’d only met a few men who had that, and they were invariably top executives or politicians or rock stars—men who commanded attention and deserved it.
She shivered suddenly. A premonition? She hoped not.
He slid into a booth just across from the one she’d picked. From where she was planning to sit, his position would be extremely visible right between a geranium and a pothos.
She wanted to ask him to move farther away, but the words stuck in her throat. She had a feeling he would take perverse pleasure in doing exactly the opposite of anything she might ask of him. She wasn’t sure why she was so certain of this. But she knew it.
“Bon appetit,” he said pleasantly, waving a napkin her way, his eyes shining with laughter in a manner that let her think he really might be reading her mind—and enjoying her discomfort. “And ‘bonne chance’.”
“Make that buena suerte,” she corrected, her eyes flashing fire at the infuriating man. “You’re in a Mexican restaurant, you know.”
He smiled at her and it was a smile that seemed to reach out and curl around her. She looked away quickly. He was ruining her concentration. She was getting cold feet as it was, and his amused scrutiny wasn’t helping.
She slid into her own booth and waited nervously, her fingers locked together in a tortured crunch, wishing she’d never let Ted talk her into this.
“Tempt the dear old colonel,” Ted had said on the last cell call she’d been able to take from Nebraska before taking the turnoff that took her to this remote island resort. “Throw out some bait and see if he snaps at it.”
Ted was very big on hunting and fishing metaphors. As her mother was always telling her, Ted was a solid rock of a man. You couldn’t go wrong with good old Ted.
He was also her boss, publish
er and managing editor of the Sunflower Ledger, for which she currently wrote a food column. She was used to following his advice. But she wasn’t sure he’d been on the money this time.
“I’m not going to do anything of the sort,” she’d told him. “I’m not going to try to trap the man. I’m just going to get to know him better and make him see...”
“It’s the only way,” Ted had insisted. “You’ve got to make him think you’ve got money. Big money. If the man really is a fortune hunter, he’ll make a pass. If he plays it straight, then you’ll know you don’t have anything to worry about where your mother is concerned.”
She’d thought about it long and hard, but she just couldn’t force herself to do that to her own mother. Instead, she was going to probe and pry and try to get to the bottom of just what this Colonel Carrington wanted—and do it in an honest, straightforward way.
Except for the flowers and things.
Everything had turned topsy-turvy since her mother had won the lottery prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Suddenly, predators had sprung from every bush. Her mother, darling that she was, would have gladly handed out contributions to everyone who appeared on her doorstep. Luckily, Kat was made of sterner stuff. And had a more suspicious mind, as well—suspicions earned in the flesh, so to speak.
Someone had to be the dragon lady, the Medusa, the guardian of the gate. The job had fallen to Kat by default. She wanted to make sure her mother had that money to protect her in the long run.
There was nothing else—no pension, no secret nest egg. Her mother had worked for years as a clerk in their local pharmacy in Nebraska, only to see the place close down, leaving her with nothing. She’d had a few tense years. Now she could finally take it easy—as long as she didn’t lose all that wonderful money to some sharp operator. And there certainly were plenty of those around.
The Baby Invasion (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams) Page 17