My Best Friend's Baby (3 page)

his ...

"Not necessarily in that order," he finished
one zip later.

"Ha, ha. Chicks, huh?" How could he banter
with her like this? If she didn't get away from him soon, she'd be
a bawling mess of tears and confessions. "That's really evolved of
you, Nick."

The familiar, beloved sound of his laughter
made Chloe feel warm all over. No one could turn her to mush faster
than Nick could. No one could ...
stop it!
She took a deep
breath and steeled her resolve. If he didn't want what had happened
to have happened, then she'd be the last person to break the news.
Nick might be a straight shooter at heart, but this was one little
white lie she felt sure he'd forgive.

Besides, it hurt no one but herself. That,
she could deal with.

"Thanks for being there last night." He put
his hand to her shoulder, turning her to face him. "You're a pal,
Chloe."

He tousled her hair and grinned. All it
lacked was for him to slug her on the arm like Wally and the
Beaver. Chloe felt more miserable than ever.

"I'm the pal who gave you the hangover from
hell, remember? You need my patented hangover cure." She pointed to
the coffee and donuts, then edged toward the doorway. "I'll just,
umm, go grab the, uh, newspaper."

She escaped the bedroom on legs too wobbly
to carry her all the way to the kitchen and flattened against the
striped wallpapered hallway. Clutching the ends of Nick's lab coat
with trembling fingers—it was too big on her, but comforting all
the same—Chloe peered toward her bedroom, half-expecting Nick to
follow her. He didn't.

Darn it.

It looked like she'd pulled it off. She'd
convinced him their platonic-ness remained intact as ever. He
wouldn't suspect she loved him, wouldn't bolt with terror at the
thought she might want his kids, his ring, his undying love and a
white picket fence to match. Wouldn't consign her to the
ex-girlfriend pile a month from now. Wouldn't think of her as
anything more than his old pal Chloe, keeper of Kahlúa and
bolsterer of bruised hearts.

What was she, crazy?

No, she answered herself. Just a girl who
wants to keep her best friend.

In the bedroom, Moe issued a feline yowl.
"Uh, Chloe?" yelled Nick. "Can you call off your psychotic cat,
please? I think he's trying to mate with my shoe."

Chapter Two

Six weeks later

He was almost there. He could feel it.

Frowning with concentration, Nick Steadman
typed a few more variables into the inventor's journal he kept on
his computer, then rolled his office chair across the pitted oak
floor of his spare bedroom-turned laboratory. His gaze swept the
long table filled with precisely-arranged test tubes and beakers,
computer printouts and heat lamps, wires and solution bottles and
the varying plants that were the focus of his current research.

God, what he wouldn't give to see the
results of his research put in production. Just once, to know that
someone believed in him enough to invest cold cash in his
ideas.

Just invent a pet rock, or something
,
his sisters said.
You'll make millions in no time
. They
didn't understand it wasn't the money that mattered to him.

Still with the dreaming, Nicky
? his
mother always asked.
You've got a good job. Stick with that
.
But she didn't understand, either. His engineering work at BrylCorp
kept him busy and kept him in supplies for his inventions, but it
wasn't security he was looking for.

You want to sell that thing
? his
brothers-in-law said.
Finance it yourself! You're rolling in
dough
. But they didn't understand that having the money wasn't
the real goal. Interesting a bona fide investor was. Once Nick did
that, once he'd set his work into production, then he'd know he'd
really done it.

Somehow, he'd convince his old man that all
those years of taking apart every appliance, every clock, every TV
in the house had paid off. He'd prove himself, to himself, and
finally make his dad proud of his only son.

Three generations of Steadman men had put
their dreams last and their families first. They'd traded their
hopes and plans, abandoned their talents, for the sake of mouths to
feed and growing kids to clothe and five-bedroom mortgages to
pay.

That particular family tradition was about
to crumble, and Nick meant to be the first to bring it down.

With one last glance at his computer screen,
Nick picked up the next ingredient in the solution he was preparing
and measured it into the nearest beaker. He had to get busy. One of
the investors he'd approached for past projects was interested in
his current research, and he wanted a working prototype to present
to his board of directors—in California—at their next meeting in
December.

Eight months away.

It wasn't much time to check the variables,
to run tests, to re-formulate if necessary. Especially when Nick's
inventing happened at night and on the weekends, sandwiched between
cubicle-cramped stints at BrylCorp and what remained of his social
life. But that didn't matter.

Come hell or high water, this time he meant
to see one of his inventions in production. If he handled it right,
this could be a very merry Christmas.

"Ho, ho, ho," he muttered, holding the
beaker to the light.

"It's not even Easter yet, Uncle Nick."

"I know, Danny." He looked up at his
houseguest for the day—his seven-year-old, sticky-fingered nephew.
"I'm planning ahead."

"Oh. Is that how come you're not gonna hunt
Easter eggs with us this year? ‘Cause you're already starting on
Christmas?"

A pang shot through Nick. He'd missed so
many Easter egg hunts, so many birthdays and Halloween
pumpkin-carvings and Fourth of July picnics. Danny was just a kid.
Commitment was only a word on a second-grade spelling test to
him.

Once this invention's off the ground, Nick
promised himself, all that will change.

"Maybe I can make it this year." His own
father—not to mention numerous Steadman uncles and aunts—had
crowded into every track meet, school play, basketball game and
science fair Nick had ever taken part in. Now, as an uncle himself,
didn't he owe the same things to his nephew? "I can't promise
anything, but I'll try."

"You can do it, Uncle Nick!" Danny grinned,
all gap-toothed innocence and enthusiasm. "My mom says you're
always trying to do stuff. Even totally impossible stuff."

Impossible stuff—like his inventions, he
assumed.
Nice job, Naomi
. If she wasn't his sister, he'd
invent a way to keep her opinions to herself.

On the other hand, he did have three other
sisters waiting in the wings ... .

Nick grinned at his nephew. "Somebody's got
to try the impossible stuff, Danny. It might as well be me."

"Or me!"

"When you're older, hotshot. For now, you
probably ought to concentrate on not landing a permanent place on
the Timeout Stool."

Danny made a face and squirmed atop his
stool near the window. It was, his nephew had informed him, Uncle
Nick's Timeout Stool.

Nick wasn't quite sure what that was. Until
today, he hadn't even known he owned one. But his sister Naomi had
apparently established them all over town, and Danny knew how to
use one. He'd sent himself there after nearly singing off his
eyebrows with the Bunsen burner while conducting a melting
experiment on one of Nick's Charlie Parker CDs.

Danny nodded toward the beaker in Nick's
hand. "So, what's that stuff?"

"It's my best shot at getting a big pile of
moola for inventing stuff." Nick waved him closer to watch. "Wanna
see?"

Danny took the bait and scuttled down from
kiddie Siberia. He edged up to Nick's elbow and poked him. "You
mean somebody's gonna give you money just for mixing up goop?" he
asked, wide-eyed. "Cool!"

Nick grinned, feeling his uncle stock soar
up a few points.

Danny frowned. "But Uncle Nick, my dad says
your inventions never work."

His uncle stock plummeted.

"That's the nature of inventing." He swirled
the solution and peered inside the beaker. "You keep trying out
ideas until one of them works."

"Oh." Danny backed up, eyeballing the
solution as though it might blow him out of his Reeboks any second.
"Sure," he said with a shrug. "Whatever you say, Uncle Nick."

"That's what I say." Nick held up the beaker
and got ready to pour. "Cross your fingers, Danny. This is it."

Danny covered his ears and closed his eyes
instead.

The element eased into the solution in a
swirl of blue. Perfect. Not an explosion in sight.

"Booorring," Danny muttered. "I'm going
outside."

"I'll be out in a couple of minutes. We can
play catch or something."

"Cool."

After the back door closed behind Danny,
Nick spread his hand across the tabletop, pulled a potted ivy
closer, and held the beaker of finished solution aloft. Time to
test his theory.

Time to ... duck! Something squawked and
beat its way into the room on a blur of wings and a flash of green.
What the hell was that
?

Dodging reflexively, Nick juggled the beaker
and just managed to get it upright without spilling any of the
solution. The thing shrieked like something straight out of a
Hitchcock move, then arrowed to the top of the fluorescent fixture
he'd hung from the ceiling and perched there, making the light sway
and flash over his equipment.

A bird. A big, ugly, lab-destroying
bird.

And he had a pretty good idea which
animal-loving, pet-store-managing softie next door it belonged
to.

"Where's your keeper, Igor?" Nick asked
it.

The bird cocked its head at him and shuffled
with tiny click-clicks of its claws across the metal fixture. It
looked at him the way it probably eyed a bowl of bird kibble.
Great—a bird evil and stupid enough to think it might snack on
something twenty times its size.

At least he'd saved the solution. Trying to
ignore the bird, which seemed happy enough cha-cha-ing across his
light fixture for the time being, Nick raised the beaker. He
checked his calculations again, started to pour ... and from the
front of the house, his screen door slammed shut. His hand jerked
sideways, narrowly missing spilling his morning's work.

"Nick? You home?"

Chloe's warm, husky voice came toward him,
followed by a clunk and slide down his hallway. A second later, her
head popped into view around the doorjamb. Her green-gloved hands
came next as she grabbed hold and arced into the room without
letting go, dressed in short denim overalls, a very Chloe-worthy
hot pink tank top, and enough silver bangle bracelets to make his
eyes hurt.

If her pet store customers could see her
now, they'd never recognize her as the same no-nonsense woman who
dished out kibble and flea spray from nine to five. Nick couldn't
understand having a Chloe-style dichotomy between professional and
personal lives. But for her, somehow, it seemed to work.

"Hi!" she said brightly. "Sorry I couldn't
get here quicker. I had a little trouble getting over the living
room rug in these things."

She lifted her foot in explanation, showing
him the in-line skates she'd used to zoom into his house and down
the hall. His gaze traveled from her purple and turquoise skates to
her green protective knee pads, slid upward past her shapely thighs
and vibrant clothes, and settled on her head. Amongst her jumble of
artfully-cropped blonde hair, she'd knotted a twisted headband of
purple and turquoise bandana.

Nick nodded toward it. "Nice bandage. Nobody
would ever guess about the lobotomy."

She made a face. "Nice try, genius, but I
don't have time to sling insults today. Have you seen—"

"Igor?" He jerked his chin toward the bird.
A mistake, he realized as the bird interpreted the gesture as an
invitation to dive toward his head like a miniature hawk on the
prowl.

"That's not Igor." Chloe smiled, as though
the little beast had done something especially bright and worth
about a hundred points on the bird SATs. "It's Shep."

"Sure." The bird landed on Nick's head. He
held himself still, trying not to shudder as it dug its claws into
his scalp and tromped around through his hair looking for the best
spot to take a bite. Or a peck. Or worse.

"He's a lovebird," she added.

"Literally?"

"Mmmm-hmmm." She gave the bird a fond look.
"They make good pets, because they're very smart. Affectionate,
too."

"Super." Nick put down his beaker for
safekeeping and pointed toward Shep. "Would you, uh, lasso him or
something? I've got work to do."

"Spoilsport. When in this millennium
don't
you have work to do?" Grinning, Chloe raised her
slender be-bangled arm and made kiss noises toward Shep.
Obediently, the bird flew to her forearm and walked placidly up to
her shoulder.

"Nice work, Snow White."

"Thanks. You really ought to get over your
fear of birds, Nick. They won't hurt any—"

"Fear?" He raised his eyebrows and gave her
his best incredulous glance. "What's to be afraid of? I could
squash the little bugger like a—"

Chloe sucked in a strangled breath. "You
wouldn't!" she cried, cuddling Shep to her cheek.

He thought he heard the damn thing actually
coo at her.

"He's had a hard life already," she informed
him, cooing back.

Nick examined Shep a little more closely.
"He looks okay to me," he said dubiously. "A little raggedy around
the feathers, maybe. Sort of down in the beak—"

"Be serious. You'd be raggedy too if you'd
been through what he has. Luckily, I was there to rescue him."

"Just what you need. Some other poor,
defenseless creature depending on you."