“Yep, five months old, almost six really, she’s gorgeous, isn’t she? Looks just like her mother, too. And this is Baylee, Sarah’s mom.” He left it to Angie to figure out the semantics.
Angie didn’t know it, but she had Baylee’s sympathy—for about ninety seconds. It occurred to Baylee that these two were both equally involved in the same game she’d walked away from more than two years earlier. She wouldn’t go back to those days for anyone, not even for Surfer Boy.
To Angie’s credit, she made a fast exit.
When Dylan turned from the doorway, though, Baylee stood there with her arms outstretched to take Sarah. She walked back over to the swing where she adjusted the baby into the seat.
Then she quietly turned and let Dylan have it, never raising her voice an octave. “First, you joke about using my daughter as a chick magnet, then you blatantly use her as chick repellant. What kind of a person does that?” And the memory of the kiss they’d shared less than twelve hours earlier had her adding, “I’m not a player here, Dylan. I can’t afford to be.”
She picked up Sarah’s teething ring from where it had landed on the floor and went over to the sink to rinse it off under the tap. Then she calmly walked over and handed it back to the baby, flipping on the switch on the swing that sent a Barney song lilting into the room.
Dylan’s temper spiked. “What’s that supposed to mean? I got rid of her, didn’t I? I didn’t invite her over here. She dropped by unannounced.”
“And she’s never done that before.”
“Well. Yeah. But things have changed.”
“Oh, I can see that. Let’s not forget Melissa, the one you blew off last night.”
“Melissa does not…matter. Hell. I’m single, unattached. I don’t need…”
“No, you don’t, but if I remember correctly, that’s the way the game’s played: a lot of them just don’t matter. It’s better that way. Although admittedly, I am a little rusty, I still remember the game. Your personal life is none of my business, Dylan, until it concerns my daughter. Sarah is not part of the game, nor a pawn to be used in yours.”
He sighed, and ran his hands through his wet hair. “Angie and I went out—a couple of times months ago. She’s a flight attendant for US Air who lives in Tempe and merely stops by from time to time whenever she’s visiting her mom and dad who live across the street. Melissa is,” he sucked in a breath, “a friend I see on occasion when the mood suits both of us.” He glanced at Sarah before leaning into Baylee to whisper the rest.
But Baylee held up her hand for him to stop. “I get it, Dylan. I’m not that rusty. You don’t have to spell it out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what, doing what thousands of other unattached, single people do in this town? I’m not passing judgment, Dylan. It’s just that for me that life is long gone. You’re obviously still on the roster. Do me a favor though. As long as I’m living here, do not kiss me again the way you did last night. Now enjoy your breakfast.” With that she walked back to the swing, hauled her daughter out of it, and headed outside leaving him listening to the strains of a tune that sounded a great deal like, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
After choking down the breakfast Baylee had fixed, and not because it didn’t taste good, but rather because it was difficult to eat crow when you were just flat wrong, Dylan cleaned up the kitchen. He’d done some thinking during the meal and realized he had a phone call to make. Melissa deserved to know things had changed. Since they had never really been in a relationship, he thought he could get by with explaining things to her over the phone.
Baylee and Sarah hadn’t gone far. They’d taken a walk along the beach. She had to admit she liked being this close to the ocean. The waves calmed her and made her think. She wasn’t really upset about Melissa or Angie or any of the others she was sure were part of Dylan’s life.
A couple of heated kisses between the two of them didn’t give her squatters’ rights into the man’s love life. It wasn’t Dylan she was upset with anyway, but rather, herself.
How had her life become such a mess, a mess that had her living a lie? She needed to do something about it, get her act together, and start thinking about the future, the long-term of what to do. She needed to get her jewelry business up and going and not as a hobby either, but rather earning real income.
She had dozens of designs she’d created just waiting for launch. Quinn and Kit had been wearing her creations since high school. There had been plenty of interest in her designs before that charity event, before Connor Boyd had entered her orderly life. She’d sold off a lot of her inventory, but since Sarah’s birth, she hadn’t worked on her designs much. There had been too much chaos, too much moving around, too much instability for her to concentrate on creating earrings or necklaces.
But no more. She needed to get her ass in gear and design a website or something to get back that portion of her life, if for no other reason than to tell herself that not even Connor Boyd could take that away from her.
And she needed to think about a permanent place to live, stop all this upheaval. If Gloria, didn’t already have plans for the house Kit rented in San Madrid, maybe she could move in there. She dug in her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, dialed Gloria’s number. “Hey Gloria it’s Baylee.”
“Baylee-girl, How are you doing? How’s that baby? Kit told me what happened with Connor. I’m so sorry, honey. I guess the Boyds are all the same—evil to the core.”
“Sarah’s fine,” she said quickly, not willing to get into the whole Connor thing. “Actually, I had a reason for calling. I wanted to know what your plans were for the rental house you have in San Madrid once Kit and Jake move into Crandall House.”
“You’re thinking it would suit you and Sarah.”
“Exactly. I need to think about a permanent place to live, Gloria.”
“You don’t mind that the house has only two bedrooms? And the second bedroom on the middle floor is tiny. And what about all those stairs? Those three levels will get old real quick with the laundry room on the ground floor. That’s a lot of running up and down stairs with the baby.”
“I’ve thought of all that. I’d put Sarah’s crib in with me in the larger bedroom on the third floor so I wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs in the middle of the night. Look, Gloria, I really need a place to live, one I can call my own.”
“I don’t mean to discourage you, honey. I just want to make sure you understand the house has drawbacks for a woman with a baby. As cute as it is, the house isn’t perfect. When I lived there I hated climbing all those stairs. That’s one of the reasons I moved out. But if that’s what you want, honey, the house is yours whenever Kit moves out.”
“Thanks, Gloria. That’s one big weight off my shoulders. Now, I just have to kick-start my jewelry business.”
“You could go back to doing a booth at the farmer’s market on weekends. That worked well before Sarah came along.”
“It did. But I was thinking about something a little more substantive, like maybe a website, doing Internet sales. If I got it going I could have my own business at home.”
“That would work. Aren’t you staying at Dylan’s? You know, he might work on the website for you.”
“I couldn’t ask him to do that. It’s awkward here, Gloria. His house is like a beacon for women coming and going, calling at all hours. I’m intruding on his life, like a fifth wheel.”
“Really? Then you’ll want out of there as soon as possible.”
“That’s why I’m working on it now.” She paused, thinking about the information Kit had been forced to tell her. “How are you doing, Gloria? I know about Ben Griffin. I think it’s terrible what those two women did to you.” And what Connor might do if he found out about Sarah.
“I’m so angry at them, Baylee. They ruined my life. They took my two babies away from me and robbed me of being a mother. I’ve been so upset about it I had to increase my blood pressure medication. I didn’t sleep a wink last
night. And finding out John knew, that he knew all along, just breaks my heart.”
“I know Gloria. It’s a betrayal of the worse kind. That’s what Kit thinks too. I’m so sorry. But it isn’t too late. You have Kit, and Jake’s doing everything he can to find Ben. It’s just a matter of time before you have both of them together.”
Gloria started to cry. Baylee felt bad. How could the people Gloria had trusted, the man she loved and her own sister, have been so mean to her?
It was then Baylee realized what she’d known for years.
Having family didn’t have to come through blood.
CHAPTER 11
When she got back to the house, Dylan was waiting on the deck with a hang-dog look, hands in the pockets of his olive green shorts. He met her at the railing prepared to do a little groveling. “I owe you an apology.”
The walk had cleared her head. Baylee shook her head and grinned up at him. “You don’t owe me anything. Your sex life is none of my business.”
“I’m sorry I used Sarah for chick repellant.”
“More like Angie repellant.”
“It worked didn’t it?”
“More effective than Raid.”
He laughed, bumped her shoulder on purpose, and offered, “Whaddaya say we hop in the car, go get the stuff you need to put your hair back to its original color? Then we bring it back here and get the job done. I’ll help.”
“Really? We don’t have to make a trip to the store. I already have everything we need.” She gave him a dubious stare. “You really know how to work with hair?”
He gave his head a very feminine shake, fluffing his hair back off his shoulders with exaggerated gestures. “Hey, how do you think I keep these tresses the envy of every woman within a fifty-mile radius? Leave it to me, darling. Your hair will look fab-u-lous.”
“You’re so full of yourself; you know that, Surfer Boy.”
Dylan ignored the slam, concentrated instead on Baylee’s brown dye job. “How blonde are you? Now that I look at it, this brown stuff just doesn’t look natural. Are we talking Marilyn Monroe platinum or maybe Debbie Harry gold?”
“Kit’s the silver platinum with all that gorgeous straight hair. Kit’s is so straight I’ve envied every strand on her head my entire life. My hair’s more golden in color, more like Sarah’s, and curly, very curly.”
Dylan reached out and touched Sarah’s topknot. The baby was still mostly bald but there were a few wisps of light hair on the top of her head. “I can work with this.”
Baylee giggled. She actually giggled. “You are such a ham. But I think between the two of us, we’ll manage to find the right shade.”
Later, while Sarah napped, with the kitchen smelling of hair colorant and bleach, with Baylee’s head covered in pieces of aluminum foil wrappers, the two of them waited at the kitchen table for the timer to ding.
Dylan looked over at her and smiled. He couldn’t help himself. He had no idea why this woman appealed to him so much—just that she did. Maybe because she didn’t seem to have a pretentious bone in her body. Here she was with her head covered in spiky sheets of tin foil and yet she acted so natural about it. What other woman would let a man see her like this without freaking out?
She was just so different than any of the other women he’d known. Maybe for the first time in a long time, he was attracted to something other than the outside, the surface stuff, to something genuine within. He knew one thing. He adored watching her with Sarah. He couldn’t discount the fact that she was such a good mother. Her kind and gentle spirit also played a factor in how he felt. Okay, so the woman was hot as hell to look at, even now with her hair wrapped in tin foil.
As Baylee sat in the kitchen chair thumbing through the latest fashion magazine, she knew she must be crazy. What woman in her right mind would want a man like Dylan to see her looking like this? She was definitely not at her best and hadn’t been, it seemed, since he’d stopped by the Book & Bean that day. In fact, now that she thought about it, Dylan had seen her at her absolute worst. Repeatedly. Oh well, she sighed, as she put down the magazine; he seemed to be okay with all of it. And wasn’t it better this way that he see her true self rather than for her to try and pretty up a false impression that he’d find out about eventually?
The timer dinged.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Dylan said as he stood up to check the color. “I think you’re done.”
“How does the color look?”
Dylan started removing the tin foil sheets one at a time. “Honey blonde, just like those pictures in your father’s study, the ones on the mantel, the ones that show you with Shirley Temple curls and no front teeth.”
“I was six and had the misfortune to lose my two front teeth at the same time. The Shirley Temple curls were Tanya’s doing. She wasn’t happy unless she could enhance my curls with a hot curling utensil. But you know what, I always hated sitting there getting my picture taken. I could never work in front of the cameras. Wouldn’t be an actress if you paid me. I’d be too bored with all of it. I used to go to the studio with Dad. In the early days, he’d pick me up and sit me on his lap while he directed another blockbuster.” She sighed, remembering some of the better days with her father. “Those were the good times.”
“You’re right. You have too much energy. I can’t see you sitting still for that long.” As he finished removing all the foil, they talked and laughed like they’d known each other forever. Comfortable with each other. They chatted on about hair styles, fashion, football, and babies.
Later that afternoon they put Sarah in her stroller and walked down the street to an old-fashioned hamburger stand on the beach. With Dylan at the helm, pushing the stroller along the sidewalk, Sarah was a perfect angel, never once resembling the infant who’d had the crying jag in the restaurant.
At the burger stand, it was obvious Dylan was a regular. The young brunette behind the counter flirted with him all the while she took their order. The same was true with the plump, middle-aged, red-headed waitress who brought the food outside to their table. Obviously a popular guy, Dylan Burke’s charm knew no age limit.
Over burgers and fries, while Sarah sat in her stroller, they enjoyed their meal in relative peace until two women, who were introduced to Baylee as Tara and Kendra, stopped by their table to say hello.
Even though the encounter went smoothly and Dylan handled it with grace, it became apparent that his friends and neighbors couldn’t quite wrap their arms around the idea that the single man about town had an infant daughter. The concept threw Tara and Kendra into cross-examination mode. During the exchange the two women did everything they could to glean the ultimate amount of information from the man they’d both gone out with numerous times.
“So you’re a daddy? You never said a word. What’s her name?”
“Sarah,” Dylan offered proudly. It did not escape Dylan’s attention that Tara and Kendra totally ignored the baby’s mother, as he watched her sit stoically by, taking in the whole ridiculous scene. Nor did he fail to notice how the women grew distant right before his eyes at the very idea he had a child. He didn’t think good old Tara or Kendra would be eager to call him any time soon, nor would they be leaving him any messages offering to hook up in the foreseeable future.
“She does look just like you, Dyl. Don’t you think so, Kendra?”
“I do. Same blue eyes, same blonde hair. How old is she?”
“Almost six months.”
“And this is the first time we’ve seen her.”
“Oh, she’s been around. I just haven’t felt like sharing her with anyone else. Baylee and I have been keeping a low profile.” He leveled both women with a dazzling smile. He was almost starting to believe the story himself. Maybe he should try his hand at acting, start with a few of the local stage productions before moving on to more serious auditions, make the rounds in Hollywood.
When Tara and Kendra finally moved on, Baylee burst out laughing. “You are some piece of work, Surfer
Boy. You almost had me believing your spiel. Have you ever thought of taking this act on the road? You’d be a natural.”
“Funny how great minds think alike. I was just sitting here envisioning fame and fortune beyond my wildest dreams when I’m discovered as the next Matthew McConaughey.”
“In your dreams, pal.”
“Hey, a guy can have delusions of grandeur if he wants. I bet he scores with a lot of babes on all seven continents.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
Baylee playfully punched him in the arm.
“Ow, that hurt.”
“I hardly think you have room to complain. No matter where we are, no matter where we go, you seem to have an overabundant supply of available women.”
He’d walked right into that one. He quickly steered the stroller toward a frozen yogurt shop. “How about dessert?”
Dylan ordered green-tea flavored yogurt with pineapple and coconut while Baylee opted for an original mixture filled with blueberries and strawberries. As they sat outside eating their own favorite concoctions, Dylan suddenly realized he didn’t know much about Baylee’s pregnancy and decided to change that. Curious by nature, the more he sat there, the more he wanted to know about anything and everything that had happened to her over the last fourteen months.
“Did you have a lot of cravings when you were pregnant?”
“Mexican food. I couldn’t get enough cheese enchiladas or chicken fajitas or tamales.”
“What, no Chinese? My sister craved sweet and sour pork until it was sickening to watch her eat the stuff. How long were you in labor?”
“Eight hours.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Really?” Amused, Baylee retorted, “Then you try squeezing out six pounds.”
He winced. “Point taken. Is that how much Sarah weighed?”
“Just under six. Five pounds, fourteen ounces to be exact. And don’t you dare say that’s small. She was big enough.”
Deeper Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 2) Page 15