Baby's First Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  She’d misunderstood. An amused, affectionate smile curved his mouth at the image of the dramatic exit she’d envisioned. Maybe both of them were a little on edge. “No, I meant maybe I should go back to my room.”

  “Oh.” She flushed, embarrassed, and lowered her eyes. “Maybe you should,” she agreed quietly.

  Marlene looked down at Robby. The baby had dozed off. The bottle’s nipple was pressed to his cheek. A tiny drop of formula oozed out. She placed the small bottle on the nightstand and rose. Very gently, she laid Robby in his crib, then slipped a blanket over him. Marlene held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t wake up.

  She leaned against the crib railing, her back to Sullivan, the gauzy nightgown she wore softly folding around the curves of her body.

  His mouth felt like cotton.

  Distance was in order here, and maybe a long, cold shower, even at this hour.

  He would see about both later. Right now, he just wanted to be next to her. To breathe in her scent and let his mind go lax. Standing beside her before the baby’s crib seemed a safe enough place.

  Curiosity nudged at him again, more urgently than before. He had tasted the passion. It just didn’t make sense. “Why did you want to have this baby—or any baby at this time in your life? Going to that Institute seems so…so—”

  “Impersonal?” she supplied.

  Whatever he had to say, she’d heard it all before, from Sally, from Nicole, from well-meaning associates who had advised her to wait, that love would enter her life and then things could proceed naturally. But she hadn’t wanted to take the chance and wait. What if love never came?

  She slanted a look at Sullivan’s profile. And what if—?

  Marlene quickly buried the thought.

  Impersonal. There was no better way to describe it, he supposed. “Yes.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe, but I had this sudden, overpowering need, and there was no one around to fill it. I wanted someone to love.” She looked down at Robby. He looked so peaceful, so innocent. She memorized the moment. “Someone to take care of.” Someone who’ll love me without making judgments.

  Right now, she was too tired for rendering explanations. “I just didn’t think it was going to be this difficult.”

  She was standing barefoot, with her hair loose around her shoulders, part dream, part reality. Her vulnerability reached out to him, drawing him in. He struggled to resist. Sullivan didn’t want to get entangled any more than he already was. He didn’t want to care about her. He didn’t need complications in his life. He liked his life just the way it was, smooth and simple. And she represented just the opposite.

  “Relationships usually are,” he said casually. “They require a great deal of work.” He saw the interest enter her eyes. “Or so I’ve been told.” He nodded toward the crib. “Even fledgling ones.”

  His eyes skimmed over her lips and he knew that if he remained, he was going to kiss her again. It was as much of a certainty as the sun rising in the morning. And that spelled trouble with a capital T. The only way to avoid the whole problem was to leave now.

  “Well, like I said, maybe I’d better go.” He crossed the nursery threshold, then paused in the doorway. “See you in the morning.”

  She nodded, lingering by the crib. He turned toward his room.

  “Sullivan.” He stopped, waiting. “Thanks. For everything.”

  He turned to look at her and grinned. “Don’t mention it.”

  She pressed her lips together, tasting him. Her heart still hadn’t gone back to normal. “Maybe I shouldn’t have,” she murmured softly to herself. “Maybe I really shouldn’t have.”

  Marlene shifted slightly. The awkward, out-of-place feeling wouldn’t abate. Robby whimpered in her arms, as if sensing her discomfort. The noise was absorbed by the floor-to-ceiling books that comprised three of the four walls within Oliver Travis’s library.

  She had no one to blame for this but herself. She had asked for this meeting. Robby was almost two weeks old, and she’d thought it was time to have things out with Sullivan’s father. Having stopped by several times to look in on the baby and spend the evening with her, Sullivan had made her feel that perhaps things could be worked out. He’d made her relax her guard.

  Undoubtedly that had been his intent all along, she thought grudgingly.

  Bearding the lion in his den, that had been her idea. She’d hoped to forestall any major problems by offering a tentative hand in friendship. Right now Marlene felt as if the hand had been examined and then severed off at the wrist.

  She had thought, after years of her father, that she was immune to this sort of intense scrutiny. But her father could have learned a thing or two from the man who sat in the wheelchair. He’d been a handsome man once, she judged, perhaps almost as good-looking as Sullivan. But something had robbed him of that, leaving in its place a man who was hunched and whose mouth had a bitter set to it.

  She wished she had never come.

  Oliver Travis’s blue eyes looked her over very slowly, as if she were a piece of land to be evaluated for its ultimate worth on the market. His expression was partially hidden behind a steel gray beard. Given the season, he could have passed for Santa Claus, except that his eyes were judgmental. And Santa Claus’s mouth would never have been turned down.

  Very slowly, Oliver took measure of the young woman his son had ushered in. Making his decision, he looked at the baby in her arms.

  His grandchild. His grandson. A world of promise within a small body.

  He felt the same stirrings he’d experienced when he had looked upon Derek for the first time. That had been a lifetime ago. But he was older now, and wiser he hoped. At least he knew that plans, like as not, didn’t always come to fruition no matter how grand or well formed they were. He’d given Derek the world, and Derek had thumbed his nose at him and thrown it all away.

  All but this tiny infant. There was still a chance. And he meant to take it, no matter what the obstacles. The world owed him that. And Derek owed him that chance, whether he was gone or not.

  Pressing buttons on the armrest, Oliver propelled his wheelchair forward until he was directly before her. He had given her the barest of greetings when Sullivan introduced her.

  “Let me see him.”

  It sounded like a royal command. Everything about Oliver Travis reminded Marlene of her father. Unsmiling, demanding, with eyes that were cold and never saw beneath the surface. Glancing at Sullivan for reassurance and then damning herself for it, Marlene pressed her lips together and carefully handed Robby to his grandfather.

  She saw what appeared to be a smile on the old man’s lips. He had made a connection. Marlene held her breath and prayed she hadn’t made a mistake coming here. The law, if it came down to that, was usually on the mother’s side. But Travis was an important, powerful man, not to be underestimated. There were ways that he could take Robby from her and she knew it.

  “Sullivan tells me his name is Robert,” Oliver addressed his words to Marlene without looking up.

  “Yes.” Marlene strove not to feel fidgety. She felt Sullivan move closer to her, but didn’t know whether to feel comforted or outnumbered.

  Oliver shook his head, dismissing her choice. “It’s too common.”

  Marlene squared her shoulders. “It was my brother’s name.”

  That made no difference to him one way or another. This was his grandson they were discussing. The boy needed a name to be proud of. A name that was distinguished. “It can be changed.”

  “But it won’t be.” Oliver looked up at her sharply, but she didn’t back down. Her eyes on his, Marlene took her child back. “Nothing about Robby is going to be changed except his diapers.”

  Sullivan could see this was not going well. When Marlene had again suggested meeting his father, Sullivan had agreed. He had hoped that perhaps things could be amicably resolved between them so that everyone was satisfied. He should have known better. The strange thing was that his sympathies had shifted from his
infirmed father to this wisp of a woman in the last few days. Somehow, heritage wasn’t nearly as important as he had once thought. There were far more important things to consider.

  He could see that he was going to have to mediate. “Dad—”

  Oliver waved him into silence. “I am prepared to offer you—”

  Indignation hardened Marlene’s features. She was not about to be intimidated, Sullivan thought.

  “It better not be money, Mr. Travis, because I came here ready to try to like you for Robby’s sake. A boy needs grandparents, and you’re the only one that he has now. But if you insult me by asking to buy his affection—or him—I’m afraid that this visit is over.”

  The tufted eyebrows formed an angry ridge across Oliver’s forehead as his eyes shot lightning. “You impudent little nothing!” He gave the impression of rising within his chair without moving a muscle. “Do you mean to stand there and dictate to me—?”

  Her tone and bearing matched his. Anything less and she would have lost. “No, but I won’t stand here and be dictated to, either.”

  “I am his biological grandfather—”

  “And I’m his biological mother,” she countered. “We know who we are. And I know how we’ll both figure into Robby’s life—unless you force me to cut you out. I don’t want that to happen, and I don’t think you do, either, but the law is on my side, so why don’t we—”

  His breath rattled in his lungs as his anger grew. “The law has a great many gray areas, young woman, and I have a squadron of lawyers on retainer. I can take you to court. I could have you cut out of his life.”

  Sullivan saw Marlene turn pale. He’d let this go on long enough.

  “Dad, you don’t mean that,” Sullivan said firmly. He exchanged looks with Osborne, who was standing discreetly off to the side. Maybe it was time for Marlene to leave.

  “The hell I don’t. And you’d better stay back if you don’t want to find yourself on the unemployment line, Osborne,” Oliver warned without bothering to look in the man’s direction. Osborne froze where he was.

  The man was a tyrant, pure and simple. There was no reasoning with him, and no way that she was going to allow him to get his hands on her son, no matter what she had to do. Marlene held Robby closer to her.

  “I’m sorry I came. I’d hoped that you might be different from what I imagined, that I was being unfair to you. If anything, I was being overly generous. I can see now why Derek ran off.” She was beginning to feel a great deal of empathy for her son’s late father.

  She was angry and had a right to be, but Sullivan didn’t want to see her leaving this way. “Marlene—” He took her arm.

  She couldn’t pull free without jerking the baby. Her eyes cut Sullivan dead. “Let go of my arm, Sullivan. Let go, or I swear I’ll make you both regret the day you came into my life.” She had no idea how she would carry out her threat, only that she wanted to get away. Now.

  Startled by the look in her eyes, Sullivan dropped his hand. “Stay,” he asked. “Maybe we can—”

  “It’s too late,” she told him. “Way too late. I never want to see either one of you ever again.” She turned away and walked out of the room.

  “Young woman, come back here. You come back in here, do you hear me?” Oliver bellowed after her.

  I hear you, Mr. Travis, she thought. I hear you all too well.

  She hurried out of the house as fast as she could.

  Marlene’s fury hadn’t abated a single degree by the time she arrived home. Exhausted, her emotions spent, she felt as if she had crossed the Mojave Desert on her knees. That was what she got for trying to be fair, she upbraided herself. For being taken in by a pair of crystal blue eyes.

  Well, another lesson learned. And paid for, she added, feeling a sadness slipping through the anger she felt. Trying to calm down, Marlene busied herself with the baby. When Sally asked her how the meeting went, she said very little. For once, Sally knew when to back off.

  After giving him his bath, Marlene brought Robby to his room. Toweling him dry, she glanced at the discarded sailor suit lying on his bureau. She’d dressed him in it for his first visit to his grandfather.

  His first and his last, she thought, her mouth hardening.

  “I’m sorry to have put you through that, honey.” She slipped yellow terry cloth jammies on him. “I didn’t know that your other grandfather was as heartless as my father was. But I should have.” She thought of Sullivan, of the offer he had originally made to her, trying to buy her out of her son’s life. “Yes, I definitely should have known.”

  Maybe she’d overreacted, but Oliver Travis hadn’t sounded as if he were willing to listen to reason or compromise. He wanted her son. He wanted to take over his name, his life, everything. She wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “You’re mine, sweetie, and no one is going to take you away from me, ever,” she whispered to the baby. Robby responded by kicking his legs.

  She knew it was time to put him down for the night, but she had an overwhelming need just to hold him. She picked Robby up and pressed him against her.

  His head rubbed against her cheek. She felt infinitely soothed. “Uncle Sullivan’s not going to be any help. Looks like you and me against the world, Robby.” A sad smile curved her mouth. “It’s not so bad, really. I’ve been there before.”

  Sullivan. She frowned as she thought of him. He should have done something, said something.

  She struggled to be fair. What could he have said? She’d had a father like that herself—overbearing, unwilling to listen, or even to acknowledge the existence of anything beyond his opinion or scope of things.

  Her frown melted slightly. No matter how angry she was, there was no denying that Sullivan did make her feel like a woman. Whenever he touched her, however casually or accidentally, it made her long to feel like a flesh-and-blood woman instead of the head of an advertising agency.

  No use dwelling on it; it was over. Besides, it was best not to venture into uncharted territory. She was good as the head of the advertising agency, and she was gingerly making her way through the confusing jungle of motherhood. That was taxing enough. Any feelings she had for Sullivan made her feel naked, knee-deep in emotional quicksand and completely unaware of how to pull herself out.

  The best way to avoid being sucked in by the quagmire was not to step out into the field and risk sinking in the first place.

  No chance of that happening now, she thought. The next time she saw Sullivan would probably be across a courtroom. God, she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  She placed a blanket over the tiny form. Robby, his cheek pressed against the mattress, was bathed, fed and changed. And fast asleep. It gave her an overwhelming sense of satisfaction.

  She tiptoed out of the room and went downstairs. This was her last evening on maternity leave. What a way to end it, she mused. With fireworks. She found herself wishing for one more week, one more day, but she’d already made up her mind to return to work tomorrow. It hadn’t been an easy decision, or one she’d made lightly. She was going to miss Robby more than she’d thought possible. But there was no way around it.

  Her firm needed her. There were accounts going begging because she was tied up at home, feeling her way around this brand-new continent she found herself in. The office had been in constant touch, almost from the beginning of her maternity leave. She’d conducted some business via telephone and fax, but she just couldn’t continue to put things off any longer. Not with the Saunders account in the balance. Miles Saunders was demanding that she handle the campaign personally, which for him meant in person. It did wonders for her ego, but very little for her stress threshold.

  Marlene struggled to put a positive spin on the situation. The best way to place everything into perspective was to get back to work. Work had always been the steadfast part of her life. It was her anchor. She needed work in order to forget about the whole ugly incident today. And to forget about Sullivan.

  She entered the kitchen
and paused. Sally was there, still tidying up after dinner. She looked at Sally closely for perhaps the first time in a long time. The woman was getting on in years. It was a jarring realization. Though she had always assumed that Sally would care for the baby, maybe other arrangements were going to have to be made.

  “Sally?”

  Sally turned from the stove, a sponge in her hand. “Yes?”

  “Will you be all right here with Robby?”

  “Of course I’ll be all right with Robby. Why? Are you going out tonight?”

  She knew Sally wasn’t going to like this. She’d never liked her working at the ad agency and had made her disapproval clear the very first time Marlene had gone to the office. Sally had never understood how important working with her father had been to her.

  “No,” Marlene answered firmly. “I’m going back to work tomorrow.”

  Sally looked at her, stunned. “It’s only been two weeks, girl.”

  “I know,” Marlene nodded slowly. “And I can’t stretch it out any longer.”

  The doorbell rang, but Sally remained where she was, staring up at the woman she had raised from a child as if she had never seen Marlene before. “You’re kidding…aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She didn’t like the look in Sally’s eyes. It made her uncomfortable, as if she’d failed to live up to some secret standard. Damn, why was it that everyone held up a yardstick to measure her by? It was her life, not anyone else’s. The doorbell rang again. It was like a bell signaling the end of a round.

  “The doorbell, Sally. It’s ringing.”

  “I know it’s ringing. I’m not deaf.” She spared her a dark look. “Not like some people who refuse to hear.” She scowled and muttered under her breath as she went to answer the door.

  Her scowl intensified when she saw who it was.

  Sally grudgingly opened the door all the way. “Oh, great, more trouble.” She looked over her shoulder. “It’s for you, and he’s bringing a gift. And I’d give serious thought to the story about the Trojan horse if I were you.”