Undercover Baby

by Gina Wilkins

  “A bet?” Dallas repeated, her head coming up from its comfortable position on his thigh. She’d stretched out beside him on the couch, her feet dangling over the opposite end, and she was totally uninterested in sports news.

  “Chill out, Sanders. I’m not talking about bookies, here. The bet’s with Walter. And the loser has to buy the winner a steak dinner. So don’t start reading me my rights, okay?”

  “I wasn’t accusing you of illegal gambling,” she retorted, resting her head on his leg again. “You’re too much a straight arrow for anything like that. And much too unimaginative,” she added.

  “Unimaginative?” he echoed, feigning offense. “Who, me?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who wants to name the kid Bob. If the adjective fits, wear it.”

  “Okay, ‘fess up, Sanders. You once knew someone named Bob, didn’t you? What did he do, break your heart?”

  “I have nothing personal against the name Bob,” she argued. “It’s just—well, dull.”

  “Dull?” He tapped one finger firmly against the wooden arm of the couch. “Like Sam, perhaps?”

  “The name or the person?” she inquired sweetly.

  “You’re treading on dangerous ground here, Sanders. Sam is a fine old name in my family. It’s been passed down—”

  “For eleven generations, I know,” Dallas cut in with a roll of her eyes.

  “Three,” he corrected her. “Starting with my grandfather.”

  “Then I’m surprised you don’t want to name your kid Sam the Fourth.”

  “I do have more imagination than that.”

  She giggled. “Oh, yeah. Right. Bob.”

  “Okay, so what would you name the kid? Something weird, right? Like Artemis. Or Zeus. Or Vladislav.”

  “All fine old names,” she declared virtuously. “But my favorite male name is Peter. After my favorite actor of all time, Peter O’Toole.”

  Sam choked. “Peter Perry? Give me a break, Dallas, the kid would be the laughingstock of his kindergarten class.”

  To his surprise, she actually blushed, her cheeks turning an intriguingly rosy color. “I hadn’t thought of using your last name,” she muttered. “This is a hypothetical kid, remember?”

  “Right. A hypothetical kid who would be called Peter Pulaski. I hate to break this to you, but that isn’t any better.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Dallas said, sitting up abruptly. “There is no kid! And, besides, it might be a girl,” she added, obviously without stopping to think.

  Sam laughed. “I suppose if it’s a girl, you’d want to name it Penny?”

  “I’m going to brush my teeth,” she announced, sweeping toward the bedroom door with exaggerated dignity. “Watch your scores, Perry. You’re probably going to be buying Walter a steak dinner before long.”

  He was still grinning when she left the room.

  Sanders was cute when she was embarrassed. She would seriously hurt him, of course, if he dared say so aloud.

  He found himself suddenly picturing a tiny little girl with Dallas’s brilliant blue eyes and intriguing dimples. His grin vanished.

  Now where on earth had that image come from? And why the hell had it left him with this achy, hollow feeling somewhere deep inside his chest?

  * * *

  SAM HAD PUT HIS momentary melancholy firmly behind him by the time he and Dallas crawled back into bed. He turned to take her into his arms, and she came to him eagerly.

  Above them, a bed began to creak.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, yes, oh, God, yes!” came the familiar shriek.

  Dallas dissolved into giggles against Sam’s chest.

  His deep laughter echoed from the dark corners of the grubby little room.

  * * *

  SAM SLIPPED DOWNSTAIRS for a newspaper early Sunday morning. The little old woman he’d spotted once before was moving down the first floor hallway behind her walker, wearing the same faded housedress and probably the same baggy knee-high stockings. He gave her a bright smile. “Good morning.”

  She darted him a suspicious look and redoubled her pace, the walker thump-thumping loudly on the linoleum floor.

  Sam chuckled and tucked the newspaper under his arm. Sam Pulaski certainly wasn’t making any new friends in this building. But Sam Perry had surprisingly few complaints at the moment. He felt better than he’d felt in longer than he could remember. He’d just spent one of the most spectacular nights in his experience. Dallas was upstairs even now making waffles for their breakfast. They had the entire day ahead of them—just the two of them.

  He could almost believe it was all true. That he and Dallas were a couple, making a home together, no matter how modest their surroundings. That the rapport they’d established extended beyond the bedroom, beyond the physical hunger they hadn’t begun to sate. That it wouldn’t all come to a messy, awkward, embarrassing end.

  Hell, he could almost believe in little “Bob.”

  He shook his head, some of his good mood fading. This was getting dangerous. And he wasn’t talking about their assignment.

  Dallas looked up with a smile when he joined her in the kitchen. The heavenly scent of crisply browned waffles filled the air, making his mouth water. But it was the warm smile she gave him that whetted his most urgent hunger.

  Oh, yes, he thought grimly. This was most definitely getting dangerous.

  It was the first time any assignment had ever put his heart at risk.

  * * *

  “DEAR ELLIE,” the letter in the newspaper began. “I’m in love with a man who can’t seem to open up to me. I want to make a lifelong commitment to him, but every time I try to talk about his feelings for me or our relationship, he changes the subject. Is there any hope for us? Signed, Frustrated.”

  Dallas peeked over the top of the newspaper page at Sam, who sat at the other end of the couch, perusing the sports section. As though he’d sensed her looking at him, he glanced up. He smiled—that crooked, lazy smile that made her stomach do slow somersaults. She returned the smile with a weak attempt of her own, and slid her gaze quickly back to the features-section page she’d been reading. Sam looked down at his baseball scores again.

  “Dear Frustrated,” Dallas read silently. “A man who won’t open up often has something to hide. A lasting relationship is built on total communication. Talk to him. If he still won’t discuss your future, you may have to accept that he doesn’t share your feelings or your goals. I urge you to find out now, before you invest any more in this one-sided relationship.”

  Total communication. Dallas sneaked another look over the paper, studying Sam’s attractive profile. She couldn’t say she and Sam shared total communication. Not verbally, anyway. They communicated beautifully in bed—but shouldn’t there be more to it than that?

  There was so much about him she didn’t know. He’d told her about his childhood, growing up the beloved only son of a police-officer father and a homemaker mother. He’d told her that he’d joined the police force nine years ago, and had vaguely mentioned that he’d first graduated from a state university. He’d brushed off her questions about his college major. He didn’t seem to enjoy talking about his career achievements.

  There was a darkness in him, a deep, secret pain that she sometimes saw in his hazel eyes or sensed in his deep, gruff voice. She’d once thought it had something to do with his broken relationship with the woman he’d lived with when she’d first met him. Now she wasn’t so sure. When he mentioned Paula, which he’d done only a couple of times since she’d known him, there’d been no real heartache or deep longing in his voice. As far as she could tell, he’d been fond of the woman, but he hadn’t been devastated when the affair had ended. Dallas suspected that the breakup had been as much his decision as Paula’s.

  Had there been another woman, before Paula? Had someone else hurt him so badly that he was still stinging, still wary about getting involved with anyone else?

  She didn’t like to think about Sam mourning an old love even when he was h
olding her in his arms.

  Not that she was ready for a lifelong commitment, either, Dallas assured herself hastily, closing the newspaper section. Her record with relationships was abysmal, and most of the men she’d known had been heartaches waiting to happen. Or vicious animals just waiting for an opportunity to attack. Or heartless sleazoids who viewed women as nothing more than vulnerable bodies to be used for their own sick, selfish pleasures.

  She suppressed a shudder as several old, ugly memories surfaced from the deep recesses of her mind. She pushed them firmly back into their dark corners, where she preferred them to remain.

  Sam Perry had his secrets. Dallas Sanders had hers. This so-called relationship was nothing more than a pleasant diversion to occupy them during an otherwise slow-moving investigation. When the assignment was over, their affair would end, as well. She could only hope it would end amicably, without an ugly scene that would make it more difficult for them to continue to work together.

  “Aren’t you supposed to get in touch with Brashear this afternoon?” she asked suddenly, wanting to hear their supervisor’s name spoken aloud, needing the reminder that this was all part of the job.

  Sam had just turned to a new page of the sports section. In response to her abrupt question, he went very still for a moment. And then he closed the newspaper. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten. Uh, thanks for reminding me.”

  He didn’t sound particularly grateful.

  “Maybe I’ll try to talk to Polly again while you’re gone. I still think she’s our best chance at breaking this case. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind getting out of this rathole soon.”

  Sam was looking at her with an odd, shuttered expression far different from the relaxed smile he’d been wearing all morning. Dallas almost regretted bringing up the assignment. For a few wonderful hours, Sam had seemed...well, almost happy. Now he looked more like the man she’d known during the past year—distant, cool, emotionless.

  She missed his smile.

  He set the paper aside. “I think I’ll take a shower and change before I go out.”

  “Sure,” she murmured, and turned nonchalantly back to her paper. As though she wasn’t aware that something had just changed between them. Something very important.

  * * *

  SAM LEFT THE APARTMENT at just after four that afternoon. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” he warned. “I’ll talk to Brashear, then hang out around the neighborhood for a while. See if I can pick anything up.”

  “No reason for you to rush back,” she said casually. “Maybe Brashear has a new lead for us.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” He hesitated at the door, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  Dallas stood beside him, her bulky harness back in place beneath a blue, peasant-style maternity top with a large ruffled collar that kept tickling her chin. She smoothed the collar down for the dozenth time. It gave her something to do with her hands, other than reaching out to cling to Sam. “Watch your back, Perry,” she said offhandedly.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you always say to your buddy Pennington?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “Seemed appropriate.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Keep your guard up, Sanders.” He brushed his lips across her cheek, then let himself out.

  Her fingertips pressed to the spot he’d kissed, Dallas stared thoughtfully at the closed door. Keep your guard up. Brenda’s habitual response to Dallas’s routine warning.

  Apparently, Sam had been watching Dallas more closely than she’d realized during the past months. Did that mean he’d been interested in her even before this assignment had begun? Or did it just mean he was the observant type? Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all. Maybe she was just wasting time looking for a faint, tentative reason to hope this wasn’t just a convenient, temporary affair.

  She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. Someone was going to get hurt on this assignment, she thought glumly. It would probably be her. And potential physical danger was the least of her worries.

  8

  SAM HAD BEEN GONE FOR about an hour when Dallas crossed the hallway and tapped quietly on Polly’s door. “It’s Dallas,” she said, identifying herself in answer to a muffled question from the other side of the door.

  Polly opened the door a moment later. She quickly searched Dallas’s face. “Anything wrong?”

  “No. I just wondered if you’d like to come over and have a cup of coffee with me. I owe you one.”

  Polly glanced across the hallway toward Dallas’s apartment. “Your man home?”

  “He’s gone out for a while. I don’t know when he’ll be back.” Dallas tried to look wistful and lonely.

  Polly took a step backward. “Why don’t you come on in here? I don’t want to be at your place if he gets home early. He don’t much like me.”

  Dallas looked hesitant. “I...uh...”

  “You’re afraid he’ll catch you with me?”

  “No, of course not,” Dallas insisted a bit too quickly. “He doesn’t mind if I have friends.”

  Polly obviously didn’t believe her. She stood in the doorway, waiting for Dallas to make her decision. Dallas took a deep breath, glanced both ways down the empty hallway, then pretended to come to a quick decision. “All right. If it’s no trouble, I’d love to have a cup of coffee with you.”

  “Come on in, then. We’re letting the cool air out with this door open. What little cool air there is,” Polly added disgruntledly. “The air-conditioning in this building sucks.”

  Dallas commiserated more delicately, waddling into the minimally-furnished apartment behind her pregnant neighbor. She tried to imitate Polly’s off-balance posture—not that it was all that difficult to feign, with twenty pounds of padding weighing her down.

  * * *

  SAM SHIFTED THE telephone to his other ear and sipped from the coffee cup he held in his free hand. His sneakered feet were crossed in front of him on his kitchen table, and he slumped comfortably in the big wooden chair. It was nice to be back in his own apartment, in a place where no eight-legged intruders skittered across the floor or counters, where the sounds from outside were nicely muted, where the air was scented with a pine-based air freshener rather than cabbages, onions and human excretions.

  Problem was, he missed Dallas. His apartment, where she’d never been, seemed empty now without her.

  Real stupid, Perry.

  Swiftly and efficiently, he pushed his personal problems aside and completed his report to his lieutenant. “I really don’t think anyone on the construction crew knows anything about baby brokers in the neighborhood,” he concluded. “I’ve all but asked outright and haven’t even gotten a hint from them.”

  “So Polly Jones is still our best lead,” Brashear said through the phone.

  “Yeah. Sanders still isn’t convinced Jones is mixed up with them, but I think she is. If anyone can find out for sure, though, it’s Dallas,” Sam added. “She’s already gotten tight with the woman a lot faster than I expected her to.”

  “Even you have to admit that Sanders is damned good at her job.”

  Sanders was damned good at a lot of things, Sam could have replied. Instead, he confined himself to a simple, “Yeah. She is.”

  “So how are the two of you getting along?”

  Sam nearly choked on another swig of coffee. He swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and casually replied, “Let’s just say we’ve got the neighbors convinced that there’s a lot of tension in the Pulaski household.”

  Brashear chuckled. “I’ll bet you do. What? Wait a minute,” he said to Sam when a woman’s voice spoke in the background. The sound from the other end became muffled, as though Brashear had covered his receiver with his hand.

  Sam lifted a curious eyebrow as he waited for his boss to get back to him. As instructed, he’d called Brashear at his home number. So Brashear had a female visitor this afternoon. Interesting. As far as Sam knew, the lieutenant h
adn’t dated anyone since his wife had died two years ago.

  “Hey, Sam?”

  He lowered the coffee cup and brought the phone back to his mouth. “Yeah?”

  “Pennington says to tell Dallas hello. And she wants to know if the two of you have been picking out baby names.”

  Sam grinned, though his curiosity had just gone up another notch. What was Brenda Pennington doing at Marty’s house this afternoon? Very interesting. “Yeah, as a matter of fact we have. Ask her what she thinks of Bob.”

  Brashear murmured a question and Brenda replied inaudibly. There was a smile in the lieutenant’s voice when he spoke again to Sam. “She doesn’t think much of it,” he said. “She thinks you can come up with something more original. Like Mathias. Or Reinhold.”

  Sam sighed gustily. “What ever happened to appreciation for the fine, old, simple names?”

  “Like Bob?”

  “Right. Or Sam.”

  “Or Martin. Now that’s a fine old name.”

  Sam chuckled. “Bob Martin Perry. Has a nice ring to it. I’ll suggest it to Dallas.”

  “Er—don’t you mean Bob Martin Pulaski?”

  Sam cleared his throat. “Yeah. Right. That’s what I meant to say. Just joking around, all part of the cover story.” He was babbling. And, damn it, he thought he might even be blushing. Hell.

  “You could be working too hard out in that hot sun, Perry. I think it’s time you came in out of the heat, don’t you?”

  Sam knew what he was being told. His part of the assignment was drawing to an end—or at least, the active role he’d taken thus far. Now it was time for step two. Time for Dallas to take over. It was a good plan, and he knew she could handle it. But he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic when he said, “Yeah, I guess it is. I’ll check in with you soon as I wrap it up.”

  “Okay. See you then. Give Sanders my best.”

  “Sure.” Sam hung up the phone, took one last sip of his coffee, then sighed and pushed himself to his feet.

  He had a job to do.

  * * *

  DALLAS GIGGLED AT something Polly said, looking across the tiny table with the rather awed admiration she knew Polly found flattering. “You’re so funny,” she said.