Baby Daddy (9 page)

The room continued to fill up until every seat was taken.  There must have been a crowd at the bar because Christopher and Dallas took forever to come back.  They passed the drinks down to us just as the lights started to dim and a lady came out and sat at the piano.
  Instead of crawling over us, Christopher leaned over and whispered, “Scoot down.”  We all shifted over two seats and Christopher sat next to me with Dallas on the aisle.

I was both delighted and disappointed.  The seating was so tight that Christopher’s arm pressed against mine, distracting me from the activities on-stage.  I barely noticed as the acting troupe went through their routines of political satire
and Texas humor, interspersed with the magician performing some pretty incredible magic tricks.  All I could think of was the man sitting so close I could smell the spicy scent of his aftershave and feel the rumble of his laughter.

The fact that he neither talked to me
nor even looked at me during the whole show bothered me more than when he was bossing me around.  I was very confused.  One moment he was teasing me about looking at another guy and the next minute he didn’t seem to care that I was in the same room.  This didn’t bode well for a long-term working relationship.  I needed to focus on this baby that was growing inside me and decide what I was going to do about it.  This was no time to be getting goofy over a guy.

What would his opinion be of me if he knew?  Did it matter?  Unfortunately, it did.  He seemed to have it all together.  He had chosen his career early, pursued it and now held a powerful position in the agency.  He was smart, handsome and self-confident.  I didn’t want him to think that I was a loser.

Dammit, I wasn’t a loser.  I was just a girl who had loved unwisely.  And if I was honest with myself, it hadn’t even been love.  If Brandon had offered to marry me, I wouldn’t have accepted.  I had been flattered by his attention and comfortable in his apartment, but I had known he wasn’t my one true love. 
If
there even was something so mystical as that.

The audience burst in
to applause and the lights brightened.  I had missed the last part of the show, lost in my thoughts.  We shuffled out of the theater, moving slowly because of the crowd.  Liberty chattered to Reno about the magician and his little dog.  Tulsa hung back with Christopher and ended up riding back in his Mustang with him while I, once again, got stuck in the rear seat of the Mercedes with Liberty while Dallas, with Reno riding shotgun, drove us back to the mansion.

Christopher let us off at the door and drove off into the night, heading to his Bat
Cave or Bee Cave or wherever he lived.  It was late, close to midnight, and I realized I was dead on my feet, so I begged off a game of pool and went to my room.  I wanted to be awake and alert tomorrow when I had to spend more time with Christopher.  If I didn’t figure out how to look at him as my co-worker and not as a hot guy I’d like to see naked, then I would be cashing in my chips and heading back to Arizona soon.

I felt much better when I awoke on Sunday morning.  My head was clearer and my energy level was back to normal.  I chalked last night up to one more
less-than-charming side-effect of pregnancy and dressed for our trip to the office.  Even though the staff wouldn’t be there, I tried to look a little more businesslike and chose a one-piece royal blue jumpsuit with a wrap bodice and skinny legs.  I buckled a wide silver belt around my still-trim waist and strappy sandals on my feet.  And to complete the effect, I pulled my long hair up and fastened it into a sort of messy French twist with a silver clip.

If I was going to go head-to-head with Christopher, I needed to feel confident and in control
...at least of my emotions.

Everyone beat me downstairs and were already enjoying breakfast when I walked into the kitchen.

“It’s about time you dragged out of bed, sleepyhead,” Reno teased.

“I guess I needed to catch up on my sleep,” I laughed.  “Who won?”

“I did, of course,” he answered with no shred of modesty.  “But Tulsa gave me a run for my money.”

“It was so much fun,” Liberty gushed.  “You’ll have to play with us tonight.”

“Liberty has natural talent,” Tulsa said.  “She picked it up quickly.  By the end of the two weeks, she’ll probably beat us all.”

“Way to go, girl,” I told Liberty and she smiled shyly.

“We play a lot of croquet at The Farm.  It was sort of like that.”

I
would never have compared the two, but I was glad she had had a good time.  It was interesting seeing the world through her eyes as she discovered life off the commune.

After breakfast, that I miraculously kept down, Anthony showed up in
a limo and drove us to a building in the warehouse district in west Austin.  We stopped in front and Anthony hopped out and held the rear door open for us.

Even though it was still early, the sky was clear and the sun was hot as we climbed out of the cool limo and onto the hot pavement.  There was
only one door on the front of the building offset to the right side, probably leading to the offices.  Oddly, there was no name on or around the door, just three numbers that must be the address.  Kind of understated for a big-time detective agency, I thought.

Harlan
pushed open the thick door that had a large panel of glass at the top and greeted us.  “Good morning and welcome to Scandals.  I know it looks more like a warehouse but in our business, it doesn’t pay to stick out.  Come on inside where it’s cool.”

We eagerly complied as Anthony returned to the limo and drove off.  Harlan pulled the door closed behind us.

“Is that bullet-proof glass?” Dallas asked.

Harlan nodded.  “You never know when there will be a stray bullet.”

We all shared startled looks.  That wasn’t a possibility any of us had considered.

“
Isn’t that a little paranoid?” Tulsa’s question was hopeful.

“We’ve had a few incidents over the years, you know, angry spouses,
psycho ex-employees,” Harlan explained.  At our uneasy expressions, he hurried to add, “Not our ex-employees...other companies’.  Workman’s comp claims and the like.”  He led the way into an open lobby area.

We looked around with interest. 
The room was decorated in warm shades of tans and browns and smelled like leather.  The floors were polished wood and expensive western art hung on the walls.  A receptionist’s desk was to the left with a pair of heavy metal doors behind it that led to the warehouse that took up the majority of the building. A leather sofa and two winged-back matching chairs were on the right for visitors and clients.  Straight back, beyond the reception area was a hallway with several individual offices on each side.

Christopher came out of the first office and joined us. 
“You all look fresh and ready to go today,” he commented.

“We didn’t party around the pool all night,” Dallas told him.

“Before Christopher takes over for the day, I need to make you aware of a little speed bump,” Harlan interrupted.  He pulled a newspaper out from under his arm.  “This is today’s edition of
The Austin American-Statesman
, our daily local newspaper.  It’s been around since the 1870s and is, I think, in the top fifty newspapers in the country.  So why am I telling you this you ask?  That phone call I got yesterday was from one of their top investigative reporters.  He somehow found out about all of you and your connection to Roger.  I tried to get him to hold off, but it made page one.” Harlan held the paper up so we could see the front page.

We gasped in unison when we saw the large photo of Roger surrounded by smaller photos of ourselves and our names, along with a story about us inheriting Roger’s estate.

“But how . . .?”  I asked in disbelief.

“Shit!” Dallas exclaimed.  “I haven’t had a chance to break this to my parents.”

“Crap...do you have any idea how many people from my past will start crawling out of the woodwork?  The foster system doesn’t attract the best and the brightest.” Tulsa raked her fingers through her hair, making some of the shorter spikes stand straight up.

Harlan hurried to do damage control. 
“I tried calling him today, but there was no answer.  I’m going to do everything I can to mitigate this.”  He looked uncomfortable and cleared his throat.  “There’s a possibility they’ll be digging into your past...you know, driver’s license, birth certificates, arrest records . . .”

“
Fuck . . .” Reno breathed it out in one long syllable.  “I don’t want my mother to find me.  She’ll want me to send her money.”

Only Liberty and I had nothing to hide.  I wasn’t concerned because no one cared where I was, and I didn’t have an arrest record to be ashamed of.  I hadn’t been to the doctor yet, so those records couldn’t be uncovered.  But I could understand why the others were bothered.  For Tulsa and Reno, they had pasts they would rather keep buried.  Dallas wanted to control his own history
...as well as his future.

“I’ll do what I can, but most of it is public and would be covered by the Freedom of Information Act,” Harlan said.  “I knew it was a matter of time before all of this came out.  I was just hoping we would have a few months
or at least weeks.”  He shook his head.  “I wanted you to be prepared.”  He gave us a curt nod, then walked toward the front door.

We watched in stunned silence as he left.

“Well, now that you’ve gotten that news, let’s try to focus on our tour,” Christopher said, valiantly trying to steer our attention back to the task at hand.  “Okay...follow me, and we’ll see the offices.”

“Why isn’t there a sign outside?” Liberty asked.

“We keep a low profile.  People who need us know how to find us,” Christopher explained.

“This place is like Fort Knox.  Do you keep valuables here or something?”  Dallas asked.

“We have some very valuable items in the warehouse area, but it’s the information that is worth more than money.  In fact, Tulsa, I’m hoping you’ll decide to stay.  We need an internal IT expert.  Right now we use a firm from Dallas, but I’d rather keep it in-house.”  He gave Tulsa an encouraging smile.

Her tough exterior melted under his warmth
.  “I’d like to check out the servers…maybe tomorrow?”

“You got it.”
  Christopher gave her a little wink.

I felt unreasonably upset by that and turned away, pretending to
study a Frederic Remington painting of a stagecoach careening down a hill.  Sort of like my life right now...out of control and going downhill.

“
There are a dozen offices down this hall.  Most of the investigators are out in the field, so they either share office space or work from their homes.  For now, there are enough empty offices for each of you.”

We walked down the hallway
and glanced into the offices that would be ours.  All were well-equipped with laptops connected to oversized monitors.

Tulsa immediately gravitated toward them. 
“Nice set-up.”

“
This is the conference room where we hold meetings and have room to spread our evidence out when we’re working on a case.” Christopher motioned us into a large room.

There was a
long oak table surrounded by ten chairs.  On the back wall was a very large picture of Roger, on-stage, back in the day when he was a celebrity.  Ironic that I was seeing my father for the first time on Father’s Day.

I stepped closer and, for the first time, I began to understand how all this had started.  He was very young and very handsome in a rugged, cowboy sort of way.  The crowd was
on their feet, waving their hands above their heads and screaming.  Roger was standing at the edge of the stage, leaning toward them with a flirtatious grin as he sang.  There was an infectious warmth in his expression that crossed over the years and out of the photo.  Most men his age would accept the adoration and physical advances of beautiful women.  How could I judge him?

“
Dallas, as promised, here are the balance sheets, income statements and cash flow sheets for the past three years and for each quarter so far this year,” Christopher said as he indicated a pile of documents lying on the table.  “You can start on them tomorrow.”