BABY, BABY, BABY

by Mary McBride

  "I'll talk about it," she said, "but I won't argue about it. My mind's made up."

  "Just talk to me."

  "All right."

  She thought perhaps she owed him that, considering their marriage, no matter how brief, but the instant Melanie opened the door to let Sonny in, she was certain she'd regret it.

  * * *

  While Melanie disappeared into the kitchen or someplace at the back of the house, Sonny lowered himself onto the couch in the living room and glared at the platter of raw vegetables and the two half-empty glasses of wine.

  Anger burned through him again and he had to swallow hard and clench his fists to keep from picking up all the remnants of his ex-wife's date and throwing them across the room.

  Don't screw this up, he told himself again. Don't lose your temper. Don't blow up.

  Easier said than done. If that big German had given him any lip, he would have had him spread-eagled and in cuffs before the guy could say Wiener schnitzel. Okay. So the Porsche was legally parked. So it was an abuse of his authority. So what? What was a lucky few inches from a fire hydrant compared to the next forty or fifty miserable years of Sonny's life?

  Out of habit, he lit a cigarette, then—after a single puff—rather than rile Melanie any more than he already had, stabbed it out in the dirt of a potted plant and covered the butt with fallen leaves. Leaning back, he dragged in a long, calming breath. Don't screw this up. To further cool himself off, he gazed around the room, pausing on the familiar objects that had briefly decorated his loft and his life.

  Her dad's stained-glass lamp cast a jeweled light around the room, and his watercolors and oils ranged across the walls like old friends Sonny hadn't seen in a while. There was her collection of blue-and-white porcelain strategically placed on bookshelves where—God bless her!—all the volumes sat in alphabetical order.

  That never made sense to him. Books ought to be grouped according to subject matter or by author, maybe even according to size. Melanie'd just looked at him as if he were crazy when he'd suggested that. She'd laughed and said, "When was the last time you looked at your bookcase, Sonny?"

  He wasn't an organized person. Hell, compared to Mel, who was? As a kid, it was hard to be organized when he didn't know what foster family he'd be living with from one week to the next. As a cop, there was no such thing as regular hours or a typical day.

  But there was a certain order to his life even if it wasn't visible to the naked eye. He didn't need to alphabetize everything to know how to find it. He didn't have to color coordinate his closet to know what to wear, and he didn't have to constantly make lists to know what he had to do.

  He checked his watch. Right now, in the next thirty-six hours, he had to convince Melanie that there was most definitely still an us, and that one of the us was about to make a huge, irrevocable mistake.

  * * *

  In the little powder room off the kitchen, Melanie splashed cold water on her face and then dragged a brush through her hair in preparation for the inevitable battle with the man who couldn't take no for an answer.

  She was annoyed with herself for telling anybody at city hall about her baby plans. City government was like a small town unto itself where news, both good and bad, spread like wildfire and where people were often burned by rumors that proved untrue. In light of that, Melanie had been candid about her pregnancy rather than have tongues start wagging about possible fathers of her child. Sonny, naturally, would have been right at the top of that list.

  Right now, however, he was on her shit list. Glaring in the mirror, she decided her hair looked a little too good for the upcoming confrontation, so she frizzled it a bit with the brush before heading back to the living room, where her ex was looking just a tad too comfortable on the couch.

  The light from the stained-glass lamp was turning his eyes a jewel green, casting shadows on his cheeks from his luxurious eyelashes. He seemed sleepy and sexy and far too content.

  Melanie picked up the wineglasses on the coffee table, considered refilling hers, but decided against it because then she'd feel compelled to offer some to Sonny. He was hard enough to deal with when he was cold sober.

  "Help yourself to veggies and dip," she said. "I'll take these out to the kitchen and be right back."

  "Take your time," he said with an accompanying sigh. "This is nice, Mel. Really comfortable."

  "Thanks." But don't get too comfortable, she thought. And whatever you do, don't start remembering all the times we made love on that couch in that lovely stained-glass glow.

  Naturally, then, while she rinsed the glasses, those incredible moments on the couch were all she could think about. Of all the things that had deteriorated during their marriage, sex wasn't one of them. Sonny was an inspired lover. The unpredictability that drove Melanie so crazy out of bed was a distinct pleasure in bed. Or on the couch. On or under the dining room table. In the shower.

  She felt her temperature rise a few distinct degrees, and blamed it on the warm rinse water coursing over her hands. What was it Peg had said to her? It was a shame to be having artificial insemination when Sonny was the genuine article. Well, if that meant a rock-hard body and the constitution of an ox, maybe so, but there was always that moment when the genuine article muttered a gruff little curse and put everything on hold while he reached for genuine protection.

  There was no denying she missed sleeping with him. In the year since their divorce not one man had managed to elevate her temperature much less turn her on. That was okay. If it happened one day, that would be fine. In the meantime, the artificial article more than served her purpose.

  Still postponing her return to the living room, she dried the wineglasses and put them back in their proper place on the top shelf of the cabinet. She was still on tiptoe when she felt a pair of warm hands at her waist.

  "God, I've missed you, Mel."

  Sonny's voice was huskier than usual. Its deep tones sent a shiver down Melanie's spine even as the touch of his hands sent a shock wave through every bone and artery and nerve in her body. He stood so close behind her that she could feel his heart beating insistently against her back and the heat of his belt buckle and, below that, the strength of his arousal.

  Don't. The admonishment echoed inside her head but wouldn't leave her lips.

  Oh, don't. His palms slid up over her ribs while his lips tantalized her neck with whispered words of love. As much as Melanie wanted to scream for him to stop touching her, to stop kissing her, to stop professing his need, a part of her desperately longed for more.

  Her stomach clenched and every drop of blood in her body seemed to thicken. Time seemed to halt completely. She couldn't help herself. She started to turn toward him just as a cell phone gave out a shrill beep.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  Sonny's cell phone beeped insistently.

  "You need to answer that," Melanie said.

  His lips tightened, but he didn't move his hands.

  "Sonny! You need to answer that."

  He swore viciously, and then nearly snapped his phone in two when he finally took the call.

  "What?" he growled in place of hello.

  Melanie edged away from him, almost deliriously grateful for the interruption. Otherwise…

  She didn't even want to think about "otherwise."

  While Sonny paced around the kitchen and talked with whoever was on the other end of the line, she returned to a neutral corner of the couch in the living room to sit with her arms clasped tightly across her chest while she berated herself for her astonishing, almost monumental lack of willpower. If the phone hadn't interrupted them… If it hadn't zapped her back to reality…

  It was only now that Melanie realized just how vulnerable she was to her physical attraction for her ex. Out of sight, out of mind had worked reasonably well this past year, and the times when he was in her sight had been in public places with no possibility of intimate contact. She had even begun to believe that
she was relatively immune to him, that her body was in total agreement with her practical head.

  Now, sitting on the couch with every nerve end in her body sizzling and every synapse firing wildly, she realized just how wrong she'd been. The only reason she hadn't made love to Sonny this past year was that she hadn't had the opportunity.

  It was fairly obvious now, given her nearly bestial attraction to the man and her appalling lack of control, that she couldn't allow herself to be alone with him in the future. Ever. She was going to kick him out of her house the second he got off the phone, and then she'd never let him cross the threshold again.

  Just as she came to that conclusion, Sonny walked into the living room.

  "You have to leave," she said, rising to confront him while infusing her voice with every milligram of iron in her body.

  "I know, babe. Dammit. I'm sorry. One of my snitches is in trouble."

  * * *

  Four hours later Sonny checked his watch for the thousandth time. It was after midnight and the light, cold rain that had begun an hour ago was turning into a hell of a downpour. Lovey was nowhere around.

  There had been stark fear in her voice when she'd called him to say that one of Slink Kinnison's pals had been going into the precinct tonight just as she was coming out after spilling her guts to Heilig and White for a paltry fifty bucks.

  Hysterical, she had called Heilig from a phone around the corner, begging him to come get her and walk her into the building, past Slink's pal, in cuffs so it would look like she was there, again, under duress. But Heilig, who was about to go off duty, had basically told her to go play with herself. She'd called Sonny next, and he'd promised to meet her at the pool hall on Garrison, only the hooker hadn't shown up.

  He'd looked for her everywhere, cruising the ten-square-block area that made up her usual stomping ground, even cruising past his own house a couple of times in case she was there. Melanie's lights had been on when he'd passed the first time, but her place was dark on his second and third passes, which was good, because if she waited up for him to return, she'd be in a blue-ribbon snit when he finally got there.

  Who could blame her? He'd promised her that he'd changed, and then proved that he hadn't by leaving her in the lurch once again when the job beckoned. Way to go, Son.

  The only good news was that she still wanted him. He'd had his doubts about that, and he'd halfway believed her when she'd told him he had no more effect on her physically than some stranger on the street. But that wasn't true. He'd felt the way her body heated up beneath his hands. He'd heard the barely suppressed moan in her throat when he was about to kiss her.

  Damn Lovey anyway for getting into a world of trouble at just the wrong moment, for calling him and then for not showing up. He wasn't going to one more sleazy dive or one more scuzzy shooting gallery in search of her. He'd cruise another fifteen minutes, that was all, and then he'd check out the bus station on the slim chance that she'd used her fifty bucks for a ticket. Then he was going home to try to figure out how to begin with Mel just where he'd left off earlier tonight.

  At the bus station, the graveyard-shift employees were about as helpful as they usually were, which meant they hadn't seen anything or heard anything. The last bus had pulled out at twelve-fifteen and the next one wasn't scheduled until eight in the morning, so if Lovey wasn't already gone she wouldn't be going for another seven hours.

  When he went back outside, there was a rain-slickered patrolman standing next to the Corvette.

  "I figured this was yours, Lieutenant," the young cop said, rain pouring off the brim of his cap. "Just thought I'd keep an eye on your hubcaps while you were inside."

  Sonny was so wet already he didn't even hurry to get in the car. "Thanks. I appreciate it. Have you been on this beat all evening, Patrolman … uh?" The kid's ID wasn't visible through his plastic rain gear.

  "Moore, sir. Tim Moore. I've been patrolling between here and the stadium for the past four hours. It's been pretty quiet with the rain and all."

  "I don't suppose you've seen one of Elijah Biggs's hookers around here. Tall, pretty girl with light skin and short reddish hair."

  "You mean Lovey?"

  "Yeah." Sonny's hopes rekindled. "Have you seen her?"

  The cop nodded. "When I came on duty. She was at the precinct talking to Detective Heilig. I left before she did."

  "Okay. Thanks, anyway. If you do happen to see her, tell her to get in touch with me, will you?"

  "Sure thing."

  "Great. Well, I guess I'll call it a night." Sonny walked around to the driver's side of his car and opened the door.

  "Nice car, lieutenant."

  "Yeah, it is. It's for sale, Moore. You interested?"

  "Oh, man. I'd take it off your hands in a hot minute if my wife would let me."

  Sonny laughed. "I know what you mean, kid. See you around."

  He drove back to Channing Square

  , hoping he'd find Lovey curled up like a lost, wet cat on his doorstep. When that turned out to not be the case, he decided she'd probably used her fifty bucks in snitch money to score some smack and had been blissed out somewhere the whole time he'd been looking for her.

  The lights were still out at Melanie's, which was probably a good thing considering how beat he was. He was almost too tired to take off his wet clothes, but he did, and then slung himself out on his mattress only to discover that the damned thing was soaked from a leak in the ceiling. He flipped it over to the dry side and dropped it a few feet away.

  The odors of mildew and garbage settled over him in the darkness. His chest hurt where last week's bullet—the one with his name penciled on it—had ripped into the Kevlar vest. But despite his discomfort and exhaustion, sleep wouldn't come and his brain wouldn't quit nagging him.

  That was an asinine thing to do, leaving Mel the way he had tonight just when he'd finally gotten close to her. Once again, he let the job take precedence over his personal life. Why did he keep doing that? Hell, when Lovey called Heilig at the precinct, he'd simply told her he was going off duty. Period. Adiós. Vaya con Dios. Good luck and God speed.

  Sonny wasn't even sure he knew the meaning of "off duty." The job seemed to have permeated his bones, taken over his life completely. At least that was one of Mel's complaints during her abbreviated stint as Mrs. Sonny Randle.

  He let go of a rough sigh, prompting his rib to complain, as well. What if he really hadn't changed? he wondered. What if the chunk of change he'd put down on this house, the mortgage, the ad in the paper for the Corvette were all just blowing smoke? What if it was all superficial, and underneath he hadn't changed one bit?

  Time would tell, but he didn't have time. It was Sunday already, and Monday was coming at him like a runaway freight train on a downhill grade.

  Monday his wife was going to conceive the offspring of some wino who probably survived by selling his blood every other week and his semen as often as possible. The idea of some stranger's child growing inside Melanie drove him nuts, but it was more than just that. It was far more than that. What if she and her baby shut him out of their lives? He couldn't even bear to think about that.

  Okay. Relax, he told himself. You blew it tonight, but there's still tomorrow.

  After that, there's the rest of your life.

  * * *

  The warm sunlight washed over her face when Melanie stepped outside early Sunday morning. Last night's rain had turned the park a vivid, gorgeous green. Even the street looked scrubbed and clean. Her paper was on the walk, right where it was supposed to be, and a furtive glance next door revealed only a vacant front porch.

  So far, so good, she thought, heading down the sidewalk at a brisk pace. No sense tempting fate.

  "Hi, Melody."

  "Hi, Melody."

  The Wrenn sisters emerged from behind a parked car. Their running garb was yellow today. Not exactly baby-duck, but closer to the shade used on warning signs for hazardous waste. It almost hurt her eyes to look at them.
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  "Hi, Susan. Hi, Sandy." Still uncertain which was which, she aimed the greeting right between them.

  "Are you coming to the party tonight?" one of them asked while both of them jogged in place.

  "Party?"

  "The birthday bash," the other one said. "It's tonight."

  Omigod. How could she have forgotten the annual Franklin Fayette Channing Birthday Blast, held each year to commemorate the man who'd originally deeded the park acreage to the city? This year she had even helped plan the party, which made forgetting it all the more disturbing.

  "I'll be there," she said brightly, as if her mind hadn't slipped several crucial cogs.

  "You don't happen to know if he'll be there, do you?" Susan asked.

  "He who?"

  They both looked toward the big red sandstone house and Sandy said, "Him. You know. The Cop on the Block."

  "I haven't the slightest idea," Melanie answered.

  The Wrenns turned toward each other. "Maybe nobody's invited him, Sandy."

  "Maybe we should, Susan."

  "Let's go," they echoed each other.

  "Wait." Melanie held up a hand. "It's probably not a good idea to bother him this early. I heard his car pulling in really late last night."

  Their perfectly made-up faces crumpled simultaneously. "Oh."

  "I'm sure I'll see him later. I'll invite him then," she added, lying through her teeth, then cheerfully waving goodbye, tootle-oo, have a nice day as the beautiful, blond Wrenns jogged past Sonny's house without stopping.

  Melanie snatched up the paper and went back inside where a fresh pot of coffee and a single, thawed wedge of iced pecan coffee cake awaited her. As always on Sunday morning, she extracted the editorial section from the paper to see what the critics had to say about city government this week. It wasn't easy reading, though, with one eye on the newsprint and one forever darting toward the window for a glimpse of the guy she'd almost gone to bed with last night.