The Baby Wore a Badge

by Marie Ferrarella

  Abandoning the feather duster she’d been waving about for the last hour in the losing battle with dust, Calista swiftly made her way over to him.

  After directing a fleeting smile at the baby, she shifted her eyes to Jake.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked him, concerned. Was this it? Had he come here to tell her that he had to take her up on her offer?

  Butterflies began to rev up in her stomach as they filed a flight plan.

  He could feel the charged energy radiating from Calista. Something in her eyes spoke to him. Stirred him. He had to watch that, he warned himself.

  Age difference. Think of the age difference.

  “No. Marlie and I were just making a formula run,” he told her. Which was true, as far as it went. “And she wanted to see what you did when you weren’t changing her diaper.”

  Glancing over her shoulder to see if Fowler was coming out of the storeroom—he wasn’t—Calista still lowered her voice as she told him—and Marlie, “My other job is a lot more interesting. And a lot less dusty,” she added. At the mayor’s office, she had a desk and the office just had a more important feel about it.

  She realized she wanted to impress him and that just wasn’t going to happen in the antique shop.

  If he was being honest with himself, Jake had to admit that curiosity was partially to blame for his impromptu visit. The things Calista had told him about Fowler the other day, that the old man seemed so jumpy whenever he was waiting for a delivery, that she had no idea how he kept the business going when no one showed up, all that spoke to the cop in him. The cop who had had nothing to do in the last month and was going to go stir-crazy if he didn’t get to use his investigating skills very soon.

  Looking around, Jake saw nothing really out of the ordinary. Nor did he see any customers. He also didn’t see anything in the furniture that was on display that moved him. In his opinion, what he saw was a collection of depressing furniture. He could see someone selling it just to be rid of it. What he couldn’t see was anyone paying good money to buy it.

  “And there’s actually a market for this?” he asked, making no attempt to hide his surprise.

  Calista glanced around, taking in the whole lot as she shrugged. “So they tell me. Like I said, I have no idea how he hasn’t gone bankrupt. If Fowler sells one piece a week, he’s going good.” She glanced at her watch. Impulse caused her to say, “You know, I’m almost done for the day. Why don’t you wait here and I’ll just tell him I’m leaving.”

  In all likelihood, it would probably make no difference to Fowler whether she told him she was leaving or not. But she had a certain sense of responsibility and that wouldn’t allow her to just slip away. There were rules of decorum to follow, even if the old man wasn’t the type to appreciate that.

  Crossing to the back, Calista knocked on the door leading into the storeroom. Receiving no answer, she tried knocking again.

  When she’d knocked a third time without getting a response, she tried the doorknob. To her surprise, it gave. Fowler always locked his door. Had he forgotten, or was there something more to it than that?

  She wasn’t going to find out just standing here, staring at the door.

  Holding her breath, she began to turn the doorknob.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Fowler snapped out the question as he came up behind her, entering from the side of the building.

  Startled, Calista swung around. “You weren’t answering when I knocked. I thought there might be something wrong.”

  Her concern about him made no impression. It was as if he hadn’t even heard that part, or possibly was too cynical to believe it.

  “What’s wrong,” he informed her, his voice growing louder with each word he spoke, “is that you’re a little snoop looking for an excuse to go into the storeroom when I expressly told you not to go in.”

  “You have no cause to talk to her like that,” Jake said, restrained anger in his voice as he stepped up to defend Calista.

  Turning around, Fowler did a quick assessment as he swallowed his initial retort. The man doing the talking was a lot bigger than him. Stronger-looking, too.

  “You’re that cop from New Orleans, aren’t you?” It was an assumption, voiced out loud, rather than a question. “Well, this isn’t New Orleans, so you can’t order me around.”

  “Not ordering, just telling,” Jake said. “She was just trying to find you to let you know she was leaving for the day.”

  “Okay, you’ve let me know,” Fowler told her. “Now leave. And take your cop friend and his kid with you,” he ordered, waving her away.

  With that he turned his back on all of them and strode into the storeroom. He slammed the door shut in his wake.

  “You heard the man,” Calista said. She couldn’t wait to put this place and its incredibly rude owner behind her. “Let’s go.”

  Struggling to contain her anger, Calista led the way out.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’m sorry about that,” Calista apologized once they were outside the store on the sidewalk. It wasn’t often that she actually got angry, but when she did it was like trying to contain a raging forest fire. It wasn’t something that she achieved easily. “Fowler has no right to behave that way toward you.”

  But Jake brushed aside her apology. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you,” he told Calista. Turning back, he looked at the store behind her. “I didn’t get you in any kind of trouble, did I?”

  “Not the kind that would matter to me,” she retorted, her anger aimed at the scrawny, angular man who was back in his storeroom, doing who knew what. “Like I said, this job’s only temporary until I start really working in the mayor’s office on a full-time, full-salaried basis.”

  Which she could only pray would be soon. Right now, the office was filled with summer interns, but come fall, they would all be returning to their respective colleges, and she would still be here. With any luck, a permanent position would open up for her then.

  “But in the meantime, you need that job to help with expenses,” Jake surmised, nodding toward the store.

  She shrugged carelessly as she tossed her head to underscore how little that mattered to her. She deliberately kept her back to the store and began to walk toward her car.

  “I’ll manage,” she assured him. “Trust me, I know how to cut back.”

  She’d done it before and besides, her needs were modest. She wasn’t one of those women who needed to go on a shopping spree every time her spirits needed lifting. For one thing, she was usually incredibly upbeat.

  She was just saying that to absolve him of blame, Jake thought. It wasn’t working, but her effort once again showed him the kind of solid, good person she was.

  “You shouldn’t have to,” he countered. Moving in front of Calista, he held out the carryall to her. “Here, hold on to Marlie, I’m going to go in and have a few words with Fowler, make this all right.”

  Rather than take the carryall, Calista raised her hands up as if she was going through the motions of surrendering. However, surrendering had nothing to do with it. She was counting on the fact that if he had to hold on to his daughter, he wouldn’t go inside and confront the eccentric shop owner.

  “No, please, really. Like I told you, he’s just a quirky, weird old man. You’ll be wasting your time and your breath trying to reason with him. To be honest, I don’t think he does enough business to even warrant having a part-time sales clerk. All I do for the most part is dust for him. Besides, I don’t want to see you getting worked up on my account. At least not this way.” Her eyes widened as, belatedly, she realized what she’d just let slip. “Did I just say that out loud?” she asked him, horrified. A splotch of pink was already beginning to climb up her cheeks.

  The remark had surprised him, but he recovered quickly. The least he could do was save her from embarrassment. So Jake looked at her innocently. “Say what?”

  He said it so convincingly that she thought for a seco
nd that she hadn’t really said the incriminating words out loud, that she’d only thought them in her head the way she’d meant to. But then she saw a fleeting glimmer in his eyes, making her realize that he was only feigning ignorance for her benefit.

  It made her feel closer to him. Her initial impression of the man was dead-on. He was good and decent. He wasn’t taking advantage of her slip of the tongue. Or teasing her about the direction her thoughts were running, which would have mortified her.

  She knew enough to quit while she was ahead. For now, she retreated with a semblance of her dignity still intact.

  That they would get together eventually—and soon—she had no doubts. It was just something she could feel in her bones, but she wanted to be able to pick her own time and place, or at least set the stage and let him think he picked it.

  And so she shook her head, taking the lifeline he’d thrown her. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Okay.” He turned and indicated where his vehicle was parked: down the block and across the street. If she wasn’t busy, he wanted her to follow him back to Erin’s. “The only right thing for me to do in this case is to take up the slack.”

  She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that. “And that would be by doing what, exactly?”

  “Having you over to babysit more often,” he answered. To him that was the only right thing to do. If he wound up costing her that half-baked job, he was ready to step up and do the right thing. Besides, it would give him an excuse—and a chance—to see her more often which in itself was something he found quite desirable.

  She knew his heart was in the right place, but… “I can’t just come over to babysit for no reason,” she protested.

  “Oh, but you’d have a reason,” he corrected. “You’d be over because I asked you to come over to watch the baby. And you can’t say you don’t have the time because you do.”

  If Fowler let her go, which she had a feeling he probably would, then yes, Jake was right. She would have the extra time. She was only at the mayor’s office three days a week and one of those days was only half a day. Calista caught her lower lip between her teeth. Jake was really tempting her—for more reasons than simply the extra money.

  But her conscience forced her to make one more protest. “Really, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to babysit?” he asked, moving the carryall in front of him so that Calista could see Marlie better.

  Marlie had a face and a disposition that would melt the heart of a rock. Now, as she cooed, was no exception. “No, of course not. It’s not that. I just don’t want you to feel guilty—”

  “I don’t,” he interjected quickly, shooting down her first protest.

  “Or obligated.”

  He shook his head. “Never crossed my mind,” he lied. “You’re good with her and she enjoys your company.” Just like her father does, he admitted silently. “So I just thought that if that old guy decides to cut back your hours or lets you go altogether,” he added, saying what was on both their minds, “I can really use your help at least part of that time, if not more. What do you say?”

  She knew Jake wasn’t exactly rolling in money. He was a policeman. A policeman on leave—who knew how much of a salary, if any, he was drawing? She refused to tie him down to any sort of promise of the future. “What I say is that we take it one day at a time.”

  She was certainly behaving more maturely than a lot of other people he knew, he thought. Anyone else would have either jumped at the chance to earn more money or, at the very least, utilized the guilt he was obviously wrestling with and turned it to their advantage.

  This one, on the other hand, behaved as if she was wise beyond her years. He liked that.

  You’re just trying to give yourself permission to do what you really want to do with her and it isn’t having her babysit, a small, annoying and exceedingly pragmatic voice in his head mocked him.

  Refusing to continue to torment himself, Jake blocked the voice and locked it away. Instead, what he did was bask in the sound of Marlie giggling with something that sounded exceedingly close to glee as Calista entertained the baby by making a funny face at her and then tickling her.

  There was no doubt about it, he thought, watching. His daughter was crazy about Calista.

  That, he finally admitted, makes two of us, Marlie.

  “You sure you’ll be all right?” Erin asked Jake for the third or fourth time.

  Concern burned brightly in her blue eyes. She and Corey were going away for a quick weekend in San Francisco.

  When her husband had first mentioned the impromptu trip to her last night, it had sounded both wonderful and exciting to her. But her eagerness to get away with Corey was marred by her concern over abandoning Jake and his daughter, leaving her brother to fend for himself after she’d specifically invited him to come stay with them so that she could help him out with Marlie. It just seemed hypocritical to her somehow. She wasn’t going to be able to enjoy the trip if guilt was part of the baggage she was packing and bringing alone with her.

  “I really hate leaving you alone like this, Jake. If you’d rather I stayed behind, I will,” she volunteered. “I don’t have to go with Corey.”

  Jake could just see how that would go over with his new brother-in-law. He lightly took hold of his sister by the shoulders and held her in place to make her listen and see reason.

  “Yes, you do,” he insisted. “I don’t want my brother-in-law to think you’re bailing on him because you’ve got a helpless brother who doesn’t know which end is up. Besides, I’m not helpless,” he insisted. “Erin, I’m a cop, remember? I’m trained to know what to do in case of an emergency.”

  “Right, an emergency,” she echoed. “Like in a hostage situation, which is great if someone decides to take the house hostage, but you’ve never trained to be a dad—” she tried to point out, but he cut her off.

  “But I’m learning all the time,” he reminded her. “I’m getting a lot of on-the-job training. Besides,” he continued with a touch of pride, “I think I’ve been doing very well.” He’d been parenting now for close to six weeks, four of those weeks under Calista’s watchful eye when he could get her. “And if I need help, I can always call on Calista,” he pointed out.

  That had been the second thing she’d done after she learned about the proposed trip. The first had been to thank Corey. Properly.

  “Speaking of which, I already did. Put her on alert,” she added in case Jake didn’t understand her meaning. “I called Calista and told her we’d be away. I asked her to look in on you while I was gone, see if you needed anything.”

  What I really need isn’t anything that would be found in a babysitting manual.

  The thought raced across his mind despite the complacent expression he was consciously maintaining on his face for his sister’s benefit.

  Erin paused significantly, her eyes all but penetrating right through him. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn at that moment that she’d transformed into a mind reader.

  But then, he decided that it was just his own conscience bothering him, making him paranoid. On the bright side, that seemed to be happening less and less each day, he noted happily. That might be due to the fact that these days he was seeing Calista in a different light than thinking of her as just some barely beyond-her-teens babysitter. After the incident with Fowler, she seemed to him to be far more together than the women he’d gone out with who were far older than she was.

  She was, he’d decided, in a class by herself. A class he knew he wanted to have access to.

  A few more words on his part and he congratulated himself that he had won Erin over. At least he didn’t have to feel guilty about being the reason she canceled out on Corey.

  Corey and Erin left bright and early the next morning, heading down to San Francisco for three days and two nights.

  Because they had no live-in servants, that left him alone in the large house with his thoughts and his da
ughter. Jake decided to put the former on hold as he immersed himself in playing and caring for the latter.

  The perfect plan lasted for only a few hours, then began to fall apart.

  Marlie began to be less and less interested in playing or being entertained. None of the funny faces he was making were working. He began to grow concerned as his daughter vacillated between being listless and being progressively more cranky and distressed.

  When she pushed aside her bottle and started to cry pitifully, he was more than just mystified. He was worried.

  Picking up Marlie to comfort her, something else registered.

  “Is it me, or are you warm?” he asked.

  Marlie answered by upping the volume of her cries. Again.

  His mother, Jake recalled, would always kiss his forehead when she wanted to see if he had a fever. His father used to tease her about her “mother’s temperature taker,” but now, in lieu of a thermometer—something he hadn’t thought to pack up and take with him—Jake found himself doing the same thing. He brushed his lips against Marlie’s forehead. And grew more concerned.

  “You are warm,” he declared, dismayed.

  Marlie’s response was to wail louder, even as she tried to shove her fist into her mouth, something he’d always taken to be an indication that she was hungry. Except that she wasn’t. She didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with her bottle when he tried to give it to her again.

  Dismay turned into really deep concern.

  Confused, wondering if he should just put her into her car seat and drive over to the emergency room, Jake didn’t hear the doorbell the first time it rang. Only when it rang a second time, much longer this time—it sounded as if someone was physically leaning on the bell—did the noise in the background register with his brain.