Mommy And The Policeman Next Door Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Dearest Reader

  Other Books by

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  7

  8

  9

  10

  Copyright

  Dear Reader,

  Being single has a lot of compensations. No one bothers you to clean the clutter off the coffee table. If you feel like having cereal or-better yet!-microwave popcorn for dinner, no one bugs you about cooking a real” meal. And there’s plenty of room on the couch for you and all three cats. But sometimes dating is fun, too. You know…dinners out Real dinners. Snuggling on the couch-cats optional-while watching a video and eating that microwave popcorn. But where do you go to find Mr. Let’s-Go-Out? How about a class?

  That’s right, a class like “Dating for Destiny,” as taught by Sarah Dann, heroine of Diane Pershing’s Third Date’s the Charm. Romance finds Sarah, that’s for sure. So where do I sign up? Then there’s our second book this month, Marie Ferrarella’s Mommy and the Policeman Next Door. This story may feature the world’s first crayoned ransom note. Of course, what would you expect when eight-year-old twins decide the perfect man for Mom is the cop next door? How better to introduce them than by a nice—fake!—kidnapping? Luckily he’s been wanting an introduction to the lady for a while, so he’s more than happy to take the Case of the Not-ExactlyMissing Mom.

  Enjoy! And come back next month for two more terrific books about unexpectedly meeting, dating—and marrying!—Mr. Right

  Leslie Wainger

  Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Mommy and the

  Policeman Next Door

  Marie Ferrarella

  To Leslie Wainger,

  with eternal gratitude for yesterday,

  today, and tomorrow

  Dearest Reader,

  Once upon a time, matches were said to be made in heaven (wouldn’t it be wonderful if they actually were?), or by striking up a conversation in a singles’ bar (shudder) or because Aunt Beth’s second cousin twice removed has this wonderful friend who has a son who…Well, you get the picture.

  These days, matching up two people who might have something in common has become far more complex than that There are services you can go to, both on-line and off, that pair you up after you’ve filled out a lengthy questionnaire (and signed a lengthy check). In a lot of cases, it’s become a science. The romance has been taken out of it, as has the personal touch.

  I thought perhaps it might be refreshing if, rather than going through such an antiseptic process, two imaginative kids were involved. They decide to take things into their own hands and see what they can do about setting their mother up with someone they think is the perfect match—the policeman next door. Those of you who were kind enough to pickup The 7lb 2oz. Valentine might recognize the heroine’s brother in this. No, that’s not a mistake in typing, I did change his name to Guy rather than use Gus because, I have to admit, the former seems a little more rugged and romantic to me. For those of you who wrote to ask if “Gus” could have his own story, I hope youll forgive the slight change and that it won’t cut in to your enjoyment of the book. (Notice how I cavalierly take some things for granted!)

  With all my heart, I thank you for reading. Love, Marie Ferrarella

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Silhouette Yours Truly

  †The 7lb., 2oz. Valentine

  Let’s Get Mommy Married

  Tract on the Spot

  Mommy and the Policeman Next Door

  Silhouette Romance

  The Gift #588

  Five-Alarm Affair #613

  Heart to Heart #632

  Mother for Hire #686

  Borrowed Baby #730

  Her Special Angel #744

  The Undoing of Justin Starbuck #766

  Man Trouble #815

  The Taming of the Teen #839

  Father Goose #869

  Babies on His Mind #920

  The Right Man #932

  In Her Own Backyard #947

  Her Man Friday #959

  Aunt Connie’s Wedding #984

  ‡Caution: Baby Ahead #1007

  ‡Mothe on the Wing #1026

  ‡Baby Times Two #1037

  Father in the Making #1078

  The Women in JoeSullivan’s Life #1096

  §Do You Take This Child? #1145

  The Man Who Would Be Daddy #1175

  Your Baby or Mine? #1216

  Silhouette Special Edition

  It Happened One Night #597

  A Girl’s Best Friend #652

  Blessing in Disguise #675

  Someone To Talk To #703

  World’s Greatest Dad #767

  Family Matters #832

  She Got Her Man #843

  Baby in the Middle #892

  Husband: Some Assembly Required #931

  Brooding Angel #963

  §Baby’s First Christmas #997

  Christmas Bride #1069

  Silhouette Desire

  §Husband: Optional #988

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  *Holding Out for a Hero #496

  *Heroes Great and Small #501

  *Christmas Every Day #538

  Callaghan’s Way #601

  *Caitlin’s Guardian Angel #661

  §Happy New Year—Baby! #686

  The Amnesiac Bride #787

  Silhouette Books Silhouette Christmas Stories 1992

  “The Night Santa Claus Returned”

  ‡Baby’s Choice

  §The Baby of the Month Club

  *Those Sinclairs

  Books by Marie Ferrarella writing as Marie Nicole

  Silhouette Desire

  Tried and True #112

  Buyer Beware #142

  Through Laughter and Tears #161

  Grand Theft: Heart #182

  A Woman of Integrity #197

  Country Blue #224

  Last Year’s Hunk #274

  Foxy Lady #315

  Chocolate Dreams #346

  No Laughing Matter #382

  Silhouette Romance

  Man Undercover #373

  Please Stand By #394

  Mine by Write #411

  Getting Physical #440

  1

  If you ever want to see Mommy again, bring a thousand dollars in little bills to the picnic bench in Cedarwood Park.

  Adam John Douglas chewed on his lower lip and held his breath as he watched the little girl who was practically his mirror image. His sister was reading the note he had written, and she was being much too quiet. Which meant that she was going to say something stuck-up when she did talk.

  A.J. cringed inwardly, silently bracing himself for what he knew was coming. He’d heard it before, but he still didn’t like it.

  They were tackling this thing together, he and Addie, the way they always did everything, and he needed to know what she thought. Addie was better at planning things than he was. Usually. He would never tell her that, of course, not even if she tickled him and made him laugh until his sides hurt, but it was true.

  A.J. rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, feeling like his stomach wanted him to run off somewhere. He was excited about this. They were finally going to do something about the policeman next door, not j
ust talk about him, the way they had for the past month, ever since he moved in. They were finally going to get him together with Mommy. After the policeman saw how nice she was, how far she could hit a baseball and what great cookies she could make, he’d be their daddy for sure.

  Just like the daddy they had lost. He even looked like him a little, A.J. thought. At least, the uniform was the same.

  All they had to do was get Mommy and the policeman to say something to each other.

  A.J. had been watching a movie on Sunday about a lady who was kidnapped when the idea came to him. He knew how to get them together. Policemen always came when somebody was kidnapped.

  Since then, he and Addie had been waiting for the right time to put their idea into action. It had to be when their mom was out, so the policeman wouldn’t realize that they were just pretending. A.J. felt like he had been waiting forever, not just four days. He had almost given up, and then things had gone right.

  Today, when Mommy left them with Summer while she went to the newspaper, Addie had seen the policeman go down to the pool. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but A.J. was pretty sure that the man was still a policeman even without it.

  It was now or never.

  A.J. had felt confident. Confident enough to let

  Addie finally see the note he had written. They would give the policeman the note, he’d look for their mommy, find her, and then they’d be together forever. It was the perfect plan.

  A.J. let out a long, fidgety sigh. What was taking Addie so long? She could read faster than that. She could read faster than he could. Wasn’t she always bragging about it?

  “So, what do you think?”

  Adelaide Douglas, born five whole minutes ahead of her brother, made the most of her seniority. Sheraised haughty crystal blue eyes to A.J.’s face as she shoved the note back into his hands and fisted her own on either side of her denim-clad waist.

  And because A.J. hated it when she did it, she sniffed. “I think it’s dumb.”

  A.J.’s eyes clouded with hurt and frustration. “Is not”

  “Is too.” Addie jabbed her finger at the paper in

  his hands to make her point. “Random notes aren’t

  written in crayon.”

  “Ransom,” A.J. corrected importantly. That was what they had called the note in the movie. He was glad he had watched it without Addie. She wasn’t the only one who could know things. “And I know

  that. It’s just a.a rough draft,” he ended triumphantly.

  That was what Mommy called the columns she wrote before she handed them in to her boss at the newspaper. A.J. was proud that he remembered that. It made up for forgetting to write the note in pen. He didn’t like pens. They always left black marks on his hands.

  Stung, Addie grabbed the note back from her brother. “Gimme that” She read the note again, then lifted her chin. She’d found another flaw. Her fair complexion fairly glowed. “The kidnapper isn’t going to call her Mommy. She’s not his mommy, she’s ours. You gotta put down ‘your mommy.’“

  A.J. was always open to suggestions. That was what made them such a good team. Addie loved to boss people around, and he was willing to be led. Most of the time.

  “Okay.” A.J. took back the note. This time, he reached for a pencil and in little lopsided letters wrote the word your between see and Mommy. Finished, he looked up at his sister and waited for further comments and criticisms.

  Addie didn’t disappoint him. “And Mommy’s worth way more than a thousand dollars.”

  Did she think he didn’t know that? “She’s worth a gazillion dollars,” A.J. agreed quickly. “But I can’t spell gazillion.”

  Addie opened her mouth, then gave up the lie. “Me neither,” she admitted mournfully, even though she hated to say so. She was older, even if it was just by a tiny bit. It was up to her to know things like that.

  A.J. reached over and put his arm around his sister’s shoulders. Of the two of them, he was the more sensitive one, the one his mother always said would be in demand in another seven or eight years. She said Addie was going to take some work.

  “That’s okay, Addie. Maybe we can say ‘ten thousand.’ I can spell ten.”

  The moment of contrition over, Addie raised her chin again.

  “So can L” She drew the pad over to her side of the small play table in their room and sat down. “And I’ve got better handwriting than you do, so I’m going to write it.”

  A.J. was more than happy to let his twin take over. “Okay.”

  With the tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth, Addie rewrote the ransom note slowly. Her heart began to pound in her small chest as she thought of the consequences. She looked up at her brother with uncustomary uncertainty in her eyes.

  “Think he’ll want to help?”

  There was no doubt in A.J.’s mind. “He’s a policeman. It’s his job.” That was what Big Bird said on “Sesame Street.” And Big Bird never lied. Just like Mommy.

  Addie laid down her pen and studied the note she’d written. It looked pretty good, even to her scrutiny. But her stomach felt as if there was a big, wet knot in it This was lying, and she didn’t like to lie. Mommy said it wasn’t right. But if they didn’t do something, Mommy was going to be alone, like old Mrs. Springer. She’d have white hair and everything because she didn’t have a husband living with her.

  Besides, Addie really did want a daddy again. One with big arms to hug both of them with. And Mommy, too, she added as an afterthought.

  She chewed her lip, just as A.J. had. “What happens when he finds out she’s not missing?”

  Nothing could shake A.J.’s optimistic view of the future. “He’ll say he’s glad she’s okay.”

  A.J. could always make her feel better. Addie began to smile. “Think so?”

  “Sure I think so,” A.J. answered confidently.

  “Yeah.” Addie nodded her head as she pushed herself away from the table. “That’s how they do it on TV.”

  Validated, A.J. was more than willing to render Addie her due. “Gee, Addie, you know everything.”

  She beamed. “Thanks. Now get me an envelope out of Mommy’s room.” Addie grabbed her brother’s arm as he began to leave. “And don’t let Summer see you.”

  A.J. laughed. Summer had been minding them for the past two years. She’d been fun in the beginning, playing games and telling them stories. But that was before she had gone off to the tall school. Mommy called it high school, so he knew it had to be tall.

  “Summer’s busy making love-y noises at her boyfriend. I could ride an ellie-fant into the living room and she wouldn’t notice.”

  Addie was inclined to agree with him, but it didn’t hurt anything to be careful. That was what Mommy always said. And when Mommy was gone, it was up to her to remember for both of them.

  “Just hurry up.”

  Waving A.J. on his way, Addie crossed to the window. A petite eight-year-old, she raised herself up on her toes, as if that could get her a better view. From where she stood, she could just barely see the fenced-in pool. The object of their intricate planning was sitting by the side of the pool, resting. But she knew, because she and A.J. had taken to watching him, that he wouldn’t be resting for long. He was always going someplace.

  She looked over her shoulder. A.J. was still standing there.

  “Hurry up,” she whispered. “He’s not going to be there all day.”

  A.J. didn’t need any further prodding. He fairly flew out of the room before his sister could finish her sentence.

  Sergeant Augustus Tripopulous, known to everyone as Guy, thanks to his younger sister’s initial mangling of his name, couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a day off and actually relaxed. Probably because it had been so long ago. Even so, he felt guilty, but he put that on hold. Put the notion that there were at least a dozen things he should be tending to on hold, as well. Instead of dealing with those dozen things, he stretched out on the white plastic lounge chair and sighed.
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  Before him, rays from the brilliant California sun skipped along the green-blue pool water, scattering diamonds in their wake.

  This was positively decadent, he thought, but he didn’t care. He had this coming to him. He’d put in some really long hours in the past month.

  In comparison to its larger, older and more sophisticated sisters, Bedford, California, was a relatively quiet little city. But that didn’t mean that it was the Garden of Eden. Crime still reared its ugly head from time to time, like as not imported from neighboring cities that were far more developed than Bedford. Which meant far more jaded, far more dangerous. A man had to stay on his toes, even here. Especially if his chosen field was law enforcement.

  Born and raised in nearby Newport Beach, Guy liked it in Bedford. He had no deep-rooted craving to play cops-and-robbers and shoot it out with bad guys. He just wanted to live in a nice place and see that it remained that way. He took it as his calling.

  For the most part, he loved his work. All but the reports. And once in a while, he even got to do something significant, to make a difference. Like the time when he had found a man wandering the streets, his mind wiped clean of any memories. Guy had had nothing to go on except the engraved medallion around the man’s neck. The requirements of his job had been fulfilled when he brought the man in to the local hospital to be checked out. The requirements of his conscience, however, had demanded a great deal more of him. He’d taken the man to his sister, who now ran the family restaurant. She’d put him to work and given him a place to stay. In his spare time, Guy had tried to find out who the man was.

  Eventually, Guy had been instrumental in reuniting the man with his past and giving him a future that contained not only a wife, but a baby, as well. It had made Guy feel really good about himself.

  And maybe, if he was being strictly honest with himself, just a little bit envious, as well.

  A woman wearing a bikini the thickness of dental floss walked by. She smiled at Guy, and he nodded in response, but made no effort to follow her and take advantage of the blatant invitation she was issuing. He didn’t feel like dallying. Not anymore. He’d spent ten years doing that. Now he felt like getting serious. He wanted to find someone and lay down roots.