Designated Daddy

by Jane Toombs

  Simultaneously she realized the car was parked and that she was looking at one of the big chain drugstores, open all night.

  “I’ll come in with you,” Steve said. “You pick out the baby stuff and your overnight supplies, I’ll put them in a cart and pay for the lot.”

  She couldn’t argue with that plan. Walking into the store with him while she carried a baby made Victoria feel odd. Anyone would take them for a family, even though they were strangers to one another and she was no relation to the child. So much for outward appearances.

  Her chronic fatigue made it an effort to concentrate on the baby’s needs, but she finally satisfied herself that she’d gathered all the essentials. Now what would she need? After finding the basic toiletries, she located a long fits-all T-shirt that would do for sleep.

  Speaking of that, she was dead on her feet. She stood numbly by while Steve paid for the items, then followed him out to the car.

  “We should unpack the infant carrier and hook it into the back seat,” she said.

  “That can wait. Where I live is only two blocks from here and, frankly, I need sleep.”

  Makes two of us, she thought as she settled herself back into the front seat. And guess who’s most likely to get it? Not the person who agreed to go off with a strange man and take care of his baby.

  Victoria fought to stay awake but the best she could manage was sort of a waking doze. She was minimally aware of driving through a guarded gate into a town house community and of Steve pulling the car into a garage.

  He let her into the house by unlocking a connecting door and went back for their purchases. She yawned as she looked around at the modern kitchen, one that didn’t look as though it had ever been used. The counters were bare of any kind of supplies or appliances.

  As Steve lugged bags and boxes past her, the baby began to whimper. Thank heaven the hospital had sent one bottle of prepared formula with them, she thought as she shifted the infant onto her shoulder, making soothing sounds. All she needed to do was warm it a little.

  “I need the bottle warmer,” she told Steve, who paused in his back-and-forth retrieval.

  “What’s it look like?”

  “Dump the contents of the bags on the counter and I’ll show you. Please try to find the pacifier, too, while you’re at it.”

  While she was plugging in the bottle warmer, he produced the pacifier and was holding it out when the baby opened her mouth in a full-throated wail. Steve backed away.

  “What’s the matter with it?” he asked edgily.

  “Hungry. Or wet. Or messy. Or maybe just unhappy with leaving prebirth paradise. If you’ll just go ahead and set up the infant carrier-bed in the bedroom I’ll be using, I’ll take care of everything else. I assume there is more than one bedroom.”

  He gave her a tired half smile. “Small, but it’s there.” Picking up the carrier box, he left the kitchen.

  While he was putting the contraption together, Steve noticed the crying had stopped. Breathing a sigh of relief, he finished what he was doing. Postponing everything else until tomorrow, he shut his mind down, entered his own room, stripped, grabbed his pajamas pants and fell into bed, asleep almost before he hit the pillow.

  He woke from a series of jumbled dreams to what he decided must be the most irritating and alarming sound in the world—the plaintive, demanding do something wail of an infant. Still dark, four o’clock according to the red numbers on his bedside clock. He waited for the crying to cease but it went on and on. Surely Victoria couldn’t be sleeping through such a racket. But if not, she didn’t seem to be doing anything to stop it.

  Shaking his head, he eased from the bed and stumbled down the hall. Her bedroom door was open, her bed empty. So was the carrier-bed. Was something wrong with the baby? He found them both in the kitchen where Victoria was changing the baby’s diaper on the table.

  “A girl!” he exclaimed.

  Victoria shot him an exasperated look. “I told you that.”

  She probably had. Hit with Kim’s death so unexpectedly he hadn’t been functioning very well last night. Apparently he’d been blind as well as deaf, because he hadn’t noticed until now how attractive Victoria was. The T-shirt she wore was too big for her, but came only to midthigh, revealing most of her well-shaped legs. The front V dipped as she bent over the baby, giving him a teasing glimpse of her breasts.

  He reacted predictably and cursed under his breath. Luckily the pajama bottom was loose fitting.

  “Her name is Heidi,” Victoria added as she finished fastening the diaper and lifted the baby into her arms. The wails faded to whimpering sobs.

  “Heidi?” he echoed blankly.

  “Your wife told me that she wanted the baby to be named Heidi Angela Henderson. Hadn’t you discussed names?”

  He hadn’t a clue where the Heidi came from but Angela had been his mother’s name. Touched against his will, he muttered, “Henderson?”

  Victoria stared at him. “I filled out the birth certificate form that way. Why? Did Francine—Kim—use her maiden name?”

  “No,” he said. “I was just surprised. That babies were named so quickly, I mean.”

  Her eyes, an unusual color between gold and green, softened. “Your wife was critical so we needed to get as much information as she could give. I think she hung on as long as she did only to make certain she could sign the notarized papers.”

  “Papers?”

  “I guess you really didn’t take much in last night, did you? She insisted you be appointed as the baby’s guardian and so we took care of that, too.”

  Steve swallowed. What was Kim trying to save this baby from? “Wasn’t appointing me guardian somewhat unusual?”

  Victoria shrugged. “Maybe. But, since you’re the father, the hospital saw no problem.”

  His gaze shifted from her to the infant’s tiny face. It looked unformed to him, resembling no one. The fuzz on the top of her head was definitely red, though. Like Kim’s. And come to think of it, Victoria’s, too.

  At the time of the divorce he’d vowed never to get involved with another redhead again. Now here he was with two of them. But only temporarily.

  Victoria plucked a bottle from the warmer, sat down and began feeding the baby. “Nothing to it, see?” she said, offering him a smile. “Fathers should learn to take care of their children early.”

  “Not this early. It—she’s too little.”

  “Babies don’t break if they’re held properly. It’s easy to learn—I’ll show you.”

  He took a step backward, shaking his head.

  Victoria had to admit she enjoyed the change in him from take-charge macho guy to nervous father. All she’d noticed about him to begin with was his uptight manner, which she’d tried to forgive because of the circumstances.

  Here in his kitchen, his fair hair sleep disheveled, and wearing disreputable pajama bottoms that threatened to fall off him at any minute, Steve Henderson was a far different proposition. A mondo attractive one. A blond hunk, really. Everything she didn’t need in the man whose house she was temporarily living in.

  There was no way on this good green earth she was going to get involved with him. The sooner he found someone else to take care of the baby, the better. Even as she thought this, her arm tightened protectively around little Heidi.

  Take care of her for me, the dying woman had begged. Victoria had. She was still doing so. But it couldn’t go on. Heidi had a responsible father who’d find a nurturing woman to take over in Victoria’s place. Soon, she hoped.

  “Think she’ll be quiet after she’s fed?” Steve asked.

  “We can hope so. Each baby tends to have a different agenda so Heidi’s is hard to predict without getting to know her better. Some simply like to cry, or so it seems.”

  Steve winced and glanced at the clock. It was too early to call the agency but he’d do that as soon as possible. Once they got rolling on investigating why Kim left Malengo—as she must have—he’d have some idea why she’d i
nvolved him. She’d not only named him as the father but as Heidi’s guardian. He couldn’t make any future plans for the baby until he knew why.

  In the meantime, though he’d be responsible for Heidi, someone other than him had to assume the actual care. Victoria, who was obviously capable, was right at hand. Why replace her? The fewer people who knew about all this, the better.

  Ambling back to his room, Steve told himself firmly it had nothing to do with Victoria’s gold-green eyes or her tempting curves. Victoria was a nurse, the best possible caretaker for an infant. Also, weren’t nurses, like doctors, trained to keep their mouths shut about patients? The last person he wanted involved in this situation was a blabbermouth.

  Keeping her here was based on expediency and her attributes—and he didn’t mean the ones her sleep-T had failed to conceal.

  Chapter Two

  Steve woke to sunlight leaking through a crack in the horizontal blinds. Nine o’clock? He never slept that late. Rolling out of bed, he started down the hall to put on the coffee, then paused, belatedly remembering he was no longer alone in the house and why. He shifted his feelings into the on-hold compartment to deal with later. Facing the problem of the present was his immediate concern.

  He glanced down at his pajama bottoms, noting for the first time how worn they were, muttered, “The hell with it,” and continued on. Once the coffee was dripping he retreated to the bedroom again. The next time he came out he’d showered and shaved and wore casual pants and a polo shirt.

  He found Victoria, dressed once again in her hospital clothes, sitting in the kitchen holding the baby while she sipped coffee. “Not bad,” she told him. “Better than the mud they brew at Kinnikec. When are we going?”

  “Going?”

  “To pick up my car at the hospital. If you want me to stay on till you hire someone, I have to go to my apartment and pack some clothes and things. I need my car to do that.”

  Before he did anything else, he’d planned to go out and call the agency from the pay phone at the convenience store outside the gates. But he could stop and call on the way to the hospital.

  “I must say you keep the barest refrigerator I’ve ever looked into,” she said.

  “I’m not home much.”

  “Evidently Kim wasn’t, either.”

  It was obvious she suspected something. He decided to tell her a half-truth. “Kim and I were separated. She wasn’t living with me. I should have mentioned it before, but—” He paused and nodded toward the baby. “My mind wasn’t functioning any too well last night.”

  Victoria nodded. “No, I don’t suppose it was. Well, that explains the lack of baby things and the usual comforts of home here.”

  Bluntness wasn’t something that bothered him. If she wanted to speak her mind, let her. But he didn’t care to dwell on his relationship with Kim so he switched topics. “We can pick up some food while we’re out.”

  “And eat breakfast,” she said. “I don’t do well on an empty stomach.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  “First you have to fix the carrier so it fits in the back seat of your car. It’s unsafe for me to carry Heidi in my arms. Against the law, too.”

  Steve knew she was right but at the same time he had no intention of letting her take charge of his life. He drew the line where bluntness crossed over into bossiness and the sooner she realized that the better.

  “I’ll hook the carrier in before we leave,” he said crisply. “When it comes to the baby you’re the expert. Period.”

  Without waiting for a response he stalked from the kitchen.

  Victoria stared after him. Another edict from the lord and master? No wonder his wife had left him. While pregnant, at that.

  On the way to the hospital they stopped at a fast-food carry-out for a quick breakfast, eating it in the parked car. When he finished, Steve got out and made a call on the restaurant’s pay phone. Once they were underway again, he began asking her more questions about Kim’s accident.

  “I think someone said two cars plowed into each other,” Victoria said. “I was too busy to ask questions. As I recall one of the men in the other car was DOA—dead on arrival.” She turned to look at the little survivor in her carrier in the back seat. As she’d told Steve, the baby was a miracle.

  When they neared Kinnikec Hospital, she directed him to the employees’ parking area, giving him her address and starting to explain how to get there.

  He cut her off. “I’ll follow you.”

  “We might get separated”

  “We won’t.”

  She didn’t argue, merely hoping he’d get good and lost. Men who thought they knew it all were not her style. She’d had more than enough of that with dear Dr. Delmer, better known as Jordan the Jerk.

  As she got out of the car, he said, “Aren’t you going to take the baby?”

  “No. She’s asleep, she’ll be fine. Why hassle with moving the carrier to my car?” Giving him a taste of his own medicine, she sauntered off without waiting for him to either protest or agree.

  When she reached her car, she met Fred Nelson, a colleague from the ER just getting into his pickup. parked next to hers. “Hey, Vic,” he said. “What’s up? Thought you were off on burn-out leave.”

  “I am. But I’m temporarily taking care of that accident victim’s baby for the father.”

  “Bummer.”

  “The accident, yeah. I was so busy with the woman I wasn’t paying attention to anyone else. Do you know any details about what happened?”

  “One dead, the other guy was torn up so bad they transferred him to Washington Hospital Center for trauma care. I heard a cop say it was a sideways collision, like maybe one of the cars was being forced off the road and swung back into the other. Baby okay?”

  “Doing fine. Scaring the pants off her father. I don’t think he’s ever been anywhere near a newborn before.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t let yourself get saddled with total responsibility.”

  “No way—it’s just till he hires someone. See you in three months, Fred.”

  “Don’t sleep it all away.”

  “Sounds like heaven. I might just do that.” She grinned at him and got into her car.

  Arriving at her apartment complex, she parked her car in its slot, noting that Steve had pulled in the driveway behind her. She might have known he wasn’t the type to get lost. He got out when she did.

  “She’s making funny noises,” he said.

  Victoria opened the back door of his sedan and looked at Heidi who was waving a fist in the air but not fussing. “Nothing’s wrong with her,” she assured him. “Babies do make other sounds than crying.”

  “Don’t be long.”

  She savored his nervousness. So much for his being macho. “Relax. Your daughter won’t self-destruct before your eyes. And if she does cry, it won’t hurt her.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s painful to listen to.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” she said heartlessly, turning away toward her apartment.

  By the time she returned to his car with a small suitcase, Heidi was whimpering. Victoria coaxed the pacifier into her mouth and she stopped until they parked in a supermarket lot where she began to wail in earnest.

  “Now what’s wrong?” Steve demanded, getting out of the car.

  Victoria got out, too. “Wet and hungry, probably. I’ll change her and—”

  “Right here?” He sounded horrified.

  “Heidi doesn’t care where we are. All she wants is to be comfortable.”

  Steve watched Victoria’s deft handling of the baby with grudging admiration. She made it look easy. When she finished changing the diaper, she sat in the back seat with Heidi in her lap and brought out a bottle of formula. The baby sucked eagerly at the nipple.

  “The other man in the accident was injured so badly, they transferred him to WHC,” Victoria said to him. “Apparently one car sideswiped the other. One of the nurses on duty last night came by and told me while I was
getting my car.”

  Steve’s well-developed sense of wrongness snapped to full alert. Had the men in the second car been Malengo’s? He suspected he was right. But even if Malengo wanted to get rid of Kim once and for all, he surely wouldn’t kill his unborn child. Could she have been trying to escape? In that case, maybe they were trying to stop her by forcing her off the road, intending to haul Kim and the baby she carried back to Malengo.

  He clenched his jaw. If that were the scenario, she must have been desperate enough to swerve into their car rather than let them capture her, making for a fatal collision.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he told Victoria, striding off to the nearest pay phone to tell the agency what he suspected. They’d check on the DOA and the injured man and find out if they worked for Malengo. If they did, what could have persuaded Kim to try to escape from Malengo in the first place? He couldn’t believe she’d suddenly decided, on a whim, that she didn’t want Malengo to be the baby’s father. He knew Kim better than that.

  No, it had to be she’d discovered something that had scared her enough to flee. Had she been trying to get to him? He’d never know for sure. Nor would he know what had panicked her. Not unless she’d had something she’d brought with her. They’d given him a bundle of what she’d been wearing and carrying. Why the hell hadn’t he searched through the stuff last night?

  He sprinted back to the car where Victoria was holding the baby up against her shoulder. “Put her down. We’re taking off,” he ordered.

  “She hasn’t burped yet.”

  “I don’t give a damn. Do as I say.”

  She glared at him “I will not! You told me I had full responsibility for Heidi. Either that’s true or you can find someone else right now and I’ll take a taxi home.”

  Steve scowled at her, wishing he could tell her to get lost here and now. He didn’t dare. Because if she carried out her threat, he’d be stranded with the baby.

  “If she doesn’t bring up the air she’s swallowed while taking her formula, chances are she’ll get a stomachache and fuss,” Victoria explained. “We don’t want a colicky baby on our hands.”