Baby's First Christmas Read online

  The only plague she had to deal with was on the home front: Sally and her disapproval.

  “We’ve been through this, Sally. That’s all behind us,” she said patiently.

  The smirk took years off Sally’s age. “No, that’s all in front of us, especially you.”

  Marlene raised an eyebrow and simultaneously lowered her voice. “Sally—”

  The housekeeper threw up her hands, not so much in surrender as in disgust. Marlene knew just what she was thinking. If only the girls had had a normal upbringing, Marlene would have a husband in the picture by now. And Nicole wouldn’t have run off with that worthless bum.

  “I know, I know, butt out.” A smile that would have made the Mona Lisa envious graced the old woman’s thin lips. “You should be so lucky.” Sally cocked her head, studying Marlene, reminding her of a gray-haired sparrow. “What brought this on? I thought you told Nicole that it didn’t matter to you who the baby’s father was?”

  That had been true in the beginning, Marlene acknowledged. But curiosity had nibbled at her incessantly until it had worn a hole right through her. Besides, there were other reasons to know.

  “It doesn’t,” Marlene insisted. “But someday my baby might want to know who its father is. I want to be able to offer a name, a history. A picture. He—or she—deserves that.”

  Sally snorted. “You don’t deliberately start out being a one-parent family if you can help it. That baby deserves a father who isn’t just a resumé or an eight by ten glossy.”

  With anyone else, Marlene would have been defensive. But Sally knew the story. She’d been there as it was unfolding.

  “I never have the time to meet anyone, Sally. You know that.”

  “You would have if you hadn’t spent all your time trying to please your father.” She shook her head, remembering. “Sooner get blood from a stone than win that man’s respect and affection.”

  Marlene sank down in the wing chair, the firmest one in the room. She was bone weary and didn’t have the stamina to go into this now. Whatever James Bailey had been didn’t change the fact that he was her father and that she loved him.

  “If you felt that way about him, why did you work for him all those years?”

  “Same reason I’m still here. You. And your sister, when she lived here. I figured that you two needed someone in your corner, and that I’d do until someone better came along.”

  Touched, Marlene rose and kissed her wrinkled cheek. “No one better than you will ever come along.”

  Sally shrugged self-consciously. Having worked for James Bailey all these years, she had little experience dealing with praise. She shuffled out of the room. There was still dinner to deal with.

  “Don’t think that means you’re getting out of buying me a Christmas present,” Sally huffed over her narrow shoulder.

  Marlene laughed. Sally was one of a kind. Probably by popular demand. “I’ve got it picked out already,” she called after the woman.

  Sally stopped in the doorway and turned toward Marlene. Maternal concern softened the harsher contours of her thin face. “Can I get you anything? Tea? Sandwich?”

  Marlene shook her head. “I’m fine, Sally.”

  Sally smiled to herself. “Yeah, I guess you are at that,” she murmured under her breath.

  The doorbell rang just as she was about to disappear into the kitchen. With a sigh, she turned on her heel.

  Marlene glanced at her watch. The private investigator was early, though not by much.

  He had said that he might be late because of the traffic. The infamous El Toro Y, located south of her home, tended to knot up between the hours of three-thirty and seven. Since he had to come from that general direction, he’d obviously allotted extra time.

  Or maybe all the holiday shoppers were out at the malls and not on the freeway today, she mused. She waved Sally back to the kitchen.

  “Don’t bother. I’ll get it,” she told her as she passed Sally on the way to the door.

  Bony shoulders rose and fell. “Suit yourself. My pay’s the same whether I answer doors or not.” Sally moved back toward the kitchen, then stopped, hovering on the threshold between the two rooms as Marlene opened the front door.

  He wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting, Marlene thought. As far as she knew, detectives weren’t supposed to arrive wearing expensive three-piece suits, but then, she thought ruefully, she’d been raised on TV detectives. Endearingly mussed PI’s who were filled with snappy patter and caught their man, half the time by accident, before the last commercial aired.

  Marlene put out her hand. “Hello, I’m Marlene Bailey. You’re early.”

  As if in a trance, Sullivan took her hand. Whatever he’d been going to say flew out of his head. Her words had caught him completely off guard.

  As did her appearance. She was the most pregnant woman he had ever seen. At least, the most pregnant woman he had ever seen from such a close vantage point. But that wasn’t what had words curling up on his tongue. The woman was gorgeous.

  Not only that, but she had class written all over her, from her tilted cleft chin to her tailored, pale blue suit. It was the kind of class that came from bloodlines, from pampering and from never having to worry about paying bills, no matter how large they were.

  Why would a beautiful woman have to resort to a sperm bank in order to conceive a child?

  “I am?” he finally said, mystified by her reaction. How could she have been expecting him?

  Unless, he suddenly realized, the woman at the Institute had had a change of heart and called her, warning her that he was coming.

  Marlene had made up her mind not to feel awkward about this. All the way home from the office, she had rehearsed what she was going to say to the investigator. Though she suspected that her request did not exactly run along the lines of the mundane, she was certain that he probably dealt with a great many strange requests. And successfully, if his clothes were any reflection of his track record.

  She glanced expectantly over her shoulder at Sally. Muttering, the older woman withdrew. Marlene led the man into her living room.

  “Yes, I didn’t expect you for a while.”

  She did know, he thought. The Riley woman must have told her he was coming. Dollar signs were probably dancing in her head.

  His eyes narrowed as he looked at the woman before him. Unaccountable disappointment washed over him. He’d thought himself securely jaded by now, but this situation generated a really bad taste in his mouth. She looked honest, genuine and, despite her very obvious condition, pure. So much for first impressions.

  “Then this isn’t a surprise?” he asked darkly.

  He was acting very odd, Marlene thought. “No, why should it be?” she asked. She gestured toward the sofa. The entire room was done in light pastels, complementing the airy effect created by the cathedral ceilings.

  Following her lead, Sullivan sat down, waiting for her to continue.

  They hadn’t talked about his fee on the telephone, and she thought it best to get that out of the way first. “Perhaps we should get the financial end of things cleared up first. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that you would find to your liking.”

  She knew who he was, all right, he thought. The woman had nerve, he would give her that. She didn’t look like an operator, but then, maybe that was how she had acquired this house to begin with. You just never knew.

  “To my liking,” he repeated.

  Every word tasted like acid on his tongue. If his brother hadn’t already been dead, he would have wrung Derek’s neck for putting him through this. It was beyond him how he could have ever worshiped Derek when they were both younger, how he had actually envied him his freedom. It was only later that he had recognized that desire for freedom for what it was. Pure, selfish recklessness.

  Marlene was beginning to have second thoughts about hiring this man. Maybe she should have researched his credentials a little more thoroughly. He really was behaving very oddly.

/>   “Well, yes,” she said slowly. “It’s only fair that we both get something from this arrangement.”

  He leaned back, his arms crossed before him. “And just what do you expect out of this arrangement, Ms. Bailey?”

  Was he kidding? “I expect you to deliver, of course.”

  She was referring to the money. Didn’t waste any time, did she? Sullivan pressed his lips together grimly. “Of course.”

  She had the definite impression that he was mocking her. The man had to be doing very well indeed to be so high-handed. Still, he did have an impressive track record, according to one of the VPs at her company.

  “I mean, I realize that these things can’t be guaranteed, but you do have a reputation.”

  Now they were getting down to it. “Yes, I do.”

  Why was he scowling at her like that? He was a very handsome man, but he looked like Zeus about to unleash a thunderbolt on a group of mortals who had displeased him.

  She squared her shoulders. “And I assume that there is some amount of truth in it.”

  He nodded, prepared to concede very little. “To a degree.”

  He was being awfully cagey. She wondered if this was his normal mode of operation, or if the fact that she was the head of a very successful ad agency had something to do with it. “Why don’t you give me a price, and then I’ll tell you what I think of it?”

  He wanted to tell her exactly what he thought of her, but he managed to maintain his control.

  “Why don’t you start the bidding?” he suggested genially, but his smile fell short of his eyes.

  “Bidding?” Marlene repeated. What was he talking about? Didn’t he have set rates? She was beginning to smell a setup. Her doubts about him continued to escalate.

  But he was here, and she might as well see this thing through. “All right, how does a hundred dollars a day sound?”

  Was she serious? Did she really intend to sell her child for a daily fee? Just what kind of a monster was she?

  “A hundred dollars a day,” he repeated grimly.

  Was that too little? It would help if he gave her some kind of a ballpark figure to work with. “Plus expenses.”

  “Expenses?” This was getting worse and worse. Just how long did she intend to bilk them? “And for how long?”

  Boy, talk about wanting to play a good thing out. “As long as it takes.” Her eyes narrowed. “Within reason, of course.”

  “Reason?” He’d heard of unmitigated gall, but the worst offender he had dealt with was a humble saint in comparison to her. The burden of years of cleaning up after Derek finally took its toll, and he shouted, “I don’t think the word reason has anything to do with this.”

  He had completely lost her. She had no idea what he was talking about, or why he had suddenly raised his voice to her, but she wasn’t about to take it.

  “Why are you yelling?” she shouted back at him.

  It was completely out of character for him. Generally he was the calm within the stormy family. Sullivan paused, but he couldn’t regain the control he sought. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I always yell when someone is trying to sell me a baby.”

  Marlene’s lips formed a perfect circle as her eyes grew wide. She stared at him, utterly speechless for what was possibly the first time in her life.

  Chapter Two

  “What are you talking about?” Marlene demanded.

  This whole conversation was taking on surrealistic overtones. Sell her baby? She’d moved heaven and earth and endured censure from people close to her to have this child. She would sooner sell her soul than sell her baby.

  He could almost believe that the shocked indignation on Marlene’s face was genuine. But he had been privy to some elaborate double-dealing in his career, and he wasn’t about to let himself be taken in by a pair of wide indigo eyes and a full mouth.

  His look cut her dead. “Don’t play innocent with me now, Ms. Bailey. It’s a little late for that.” His eyes narrowed. This had to be the dirtiest scam he’d ever come across. “I’ve seen some cool customers in my time, but you really take the cake.”

  How dare he stand there, pontificating about some delusional thought that was floating through his head? She knew all she had to do was let out one scream and Sally would be punching out the numbers to the police on the telephone in the next heartbeat. But she didn’t want it to come to that. She was going to handle this hustler on her own.

  “Listen, mister, if I had a cake, you’d be wearing it right now. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Aren’t you Mr. Spencer?”

  Sullivan suddenly had an inkling that a horrible mistake had been made, and that he had been the one to make it. Some of his anger abated. He stared at her like someone who had opened the wrong door and found the tiger, not the lady, waiting for him.

  “No, I’m not. Who’s Mr. Spencer?”

  “John Spencer. He’s a private investigator—” Marlene stopped abruptly. “Why am I explaining this to you?” She certainly didn’t owe him an explanation. She didn’t even know who he was. All she did know was that he had to be deranged. Taking a step back, she raised her voice. “Sally—”

  The woman had never gone more than a few steps into the next room. “I’m already calling 911,” Sally assured her as she hurried to the phone.

  “No, wait,” Sullivan called out. It was an order, not a protest.

  Like a feisty bantam rooster, Sally bobbed into the doorway. “Why should I?” she demanded. “The way I see it, you could be dangerous.”

  Men had called him that, but the description had been issued across a bargaining table. It had never been applied to him in the sense that this small troll of a woman meant it.

  He leveled a look at Sally that was meant to freeze her in her tracks. “Hardly.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Marlene folded her arms before her as she regarded him coldly. “Most deranged people are dangerous to some degree.”

  “I am not deranged.” Although after years of having to deal with Derek’s indiscretions, he probably had a right to be. Sullivan looked at Sally expectantly, waiting for the woman to go. “Ms. Bailey and I have some business to discuss, so if you don’t mind leaving…”

  “Stay where you are, Sally,” Marlene ordered. Her eyes flashed as she looked at Sullivan. “We have nothing at all to discuss. How could I have any business with you? I don’t even know who you are.”

  His eyes swept over her form. “In a manner of speaking, you do.”

  If she hadn’t been waiting for Spencer, if overwhelming curiosity hadn’t kept her up at night and wiggled its way into the structure of her workday like a tenacious gopher burrowing its way through the ground, the thought wouldn’t have occurred to her. But it did, coming to her riding a lightning bolt.

  Marlene’s mouth dropped open. Her hand splayed across her abdomen as if that could somehow protect the baby from this. In the last month she’d imagined the baby’s father over and over again. At times he was tall, dark and handsome, just like the man standing in her living room. But never once had she envisioned a ranting madman.

  “You don’t mean that you’re…?” Her voice trailed away. She was unable, unwilling, to complete the thought and give it credence.

  The last bit of doubt that she had in any way known the name of the donor disappeared. “No, my brother is.”

  She didn’t understand how he could have known that, or what he was doing here. The Institute prided itself on secrecy and discretion. That was why she had chosen it in the first place, and why, eight months later, she’d been forced to hire a private investigator to uncover the information she now wanted. They had refused, politely but firmly, to give a name to her.

  Marlene struggled to pull together the scattered pieces of information into the semblance of a whole. “Do you want to start this at the beginning?”

  Sally drew closer until she was at Marlene’s elbow, an old, protective pit bull whose teeth were still sharp enough to be reckoned with. “W
hy don’t I just make myself comfortable here?” she suggested to Marlene.

  Instinctively Marlene knew she had nothing to fear from the stranger, at least not physically. Emotionally might be a completely different story, but she needed to get to the bottom of this. “It’s all right, Sally.”

  But Sally stubbornly remained where she was, unconvinced. “He looks shifty to me.”

  Despite the situation, Sullivan couldn’t help laughing. Now that was a new adjective for him. He was hard and tough when he had to be, but no one had ever accused him of being shifty.

  “I assure you that you have nothing to worry about from me.”

  Marlene wasn’t altogether sure about that. Fear worked on many levels, and there was something in the man’s eyes that made her feel uneasy, although she couldn’t quite say why. Still, she knew that she wasn’t going to find out anything more as long as Sally remained in the room like a hovering harpy. His bearing made that clear.

  “I can take care of this, Sally.”

  Reluctantly, Sally withdrew for the second time. “All right, but I’ll be within earshot if you decide that you need me.”

  Marlene’s eyes remained fixed on the stranger’s. Never let your opponent know that he had intimidated you. That had been one of her father’s prime rules of thumb. And whatever else this man was, he was her opponent. It was written all over him.

  “Fine,” she told Sally.

  “With the dogs,” Sally added as a postscript. Her small eyes narrowed to slits as she looked at the man standing in the living room. “Hungry dogs.” With that, she shuffled out of sight.

  Marlene saw what appeared to be amusement flicker across the stranger’s face. “We don’t have any dogs,” she said. But she had a feeling he already knew that.

  A hint of a smile curved his mouth. The old woman was as protective of her as Osborne was of his father. It was nice to know that there were still people like that out there, even if it was getting in his way now. “I didn’t think so.”

  Marlene silently indicated the sofa again. He sat down, waiting for her to do the same. Rather than join him, she took a seat in the wing chair opposite him. He noticed that she was gripping the arms.