The Baby Invasion (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams) (21 page)

Margy hugged her. “You are so good for him,” she said again, as she’d said so many times. “I couldn’t have picked a better match myself.”

Scott was shaving when Cathy came in. She leaned against the door, watching him in the mirror. He looked back at her, his eyes troubled.

“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “They’re going to love you.”

He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe. But will I love them?”

He kissed her before he left, kissed her long and hard, and then turned and walked to Margy’s car without a word. She watched them drive away, and then she went back into the room and began to pack. From the time they’d arrived, she’d known she would have to do this. Now the time had come.

The van was packed in less than an hour. The children were in the car seats. She looked back at the lake and tears rimmed her eyes. They’d had a wonderful time. But it was over.

She left Scott a note, telling him she would be fine driving back in the van with only her own three, thanking him for helping her with the babies, saying that she knew he could get a free flight down with almost any airline so he wasn’t stranded.
 

“Thanks again,” she ended it. “It’s been fun.”

She left a check to cover the motel expenses, even though Margy had told her not to pay, and she left a little hostess gift for Scott’s sister as well. And then she got into the van and drove off.

They made good time driving down. She broke into tears only once when they passed the Mammoth Lakes cutoff. And soon they were back in their apartment, snug in their own beds.

Their lives quickly returned to the routine they’d left when they’d gone to take care of April’s triplets that weekend. Within days it was as though they’d never been away. Cathy was typing up insurance forms. The twins were learning to read. And Beanie was busy getting into everything.

Cathy thought about Scott every hour of the day. She saw his face in her mirror, she felt his touch in her dreams. And for the next week, every time the phone rang, she was sure it was going to be him.

But it never was. She finally had to face it.
 
He wasn’t going to call.

She told herself that was good. It was never meant to be. Better to cut it off quickly than to have their romance die a lingering death.

“Better to have loved and lost,” she kept telling herself. But she didn’t really believe it.

And deep inside, she felt an aching emptiness.
 
A part of her had been so sure…
 
Hadn’t there been love in his eyes?
 
Hadn’t he been getting better and better with the children?
 
Hadn’t he held her as though he loved her?

But no.
 
He had never pretended he wanted a real relationship.
 
Was this the end of any hope for a real life with a real man she could love?
 
Was this the end of any hope of having a father for her children?
 

Hopelessness washed over her and she hung her head and cried.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

Aga Daddy

Scott was back in town and so lonely, he spent most of his evenings at
Mickey’s on the Bay
for almost a week, as though somehow that was going to soothe his tortured soul for him.
 

It didn’t.
 

But he enjoyed talking over old times with various old friends and Mickey made sure he got a good meal in him at least once a day.
 
She also kept him up on the latest with the family.

“Who is that beautiful woman Rick’s got on his arm?” he asked her as he saw his cousin enter and stop at a front table.
 

“That’s Terry,” she said.
 
“I don’t know if you ever spent any time out at Mar Vista in the old days, but her father was the butler for your great uncle Calvin.
 
His name was Yardley.
 
Last year Calvin hired him back, and then he had some sort of injury, and Terry stepped in to act as butler for the family.”

“Crazy.”

“You can say that, but she did a terrific job.”
 
Mickey grinned.
 
“So terrific, Rick married her to keep her in the family.”

Scott laughed.
 
“I meant ‘crazy’ in a good way.”

“I know.”
 
Mickey sighed.
 
“The problem is, she’s been trying and trying to get pregnant, but so far, it’s a no go.
 
He already had two kids from a first marriage and they are a lovely bunch together.
 
But Terry is aching for a baby of her own.
 
Poor thing.”

Scott grimaced.
 
Problems.
 
Always problems.
 
It came with the territory, didn’t it?
 

“Shelley and Tanner are down in Nueva Bahia,” she told him at one point.
 
“Trying to save your great uncle John, the Colonel, from a gold digger who’s after him.”

Scott frowned thoughtfully.
 
“Maybe I ought to go down there and help them,” he noted.
 
“It would be just like the old days.
 
The three amigos, together again.”

But they both knew he wasn’t going to do it.
 
Mickey didn’t know what had broken his heart, but she knew he was a long way from healing.
 
Scott was just barely finding his sea legs after his latest romance, as far as she could see.
 

And he would have been the first to agree with her.
 
He was trying.
 
Still, memories of Cathy got in the way of moving on with his life.
 
Every time he thought of her, that old empty, lonely feeling would fill him and he’d just feel desolation again.
 

He had a good time getting to know Tag, the Carrington who had married Mickey, and teasing Amity, Mickey’s new employee.
 
She had a wry sense of humor that meshed well with his, but she invariably shied away from any talk about her life or where she came from.
 

“So what’s the story on your girl Amity?” he asked Mickey one afternoon.
 
“Is it just my wild imagination, or does she look a little….”
 
He raised an eyebrow.

Mickey smiled.
 
“Yes, she’s pregnant.
 
More than a little.”

“No husband in sight?”

Mickey hesitated, then shook her head with a world weary smile.
 
“That’s something I’m in the dark about.
 
I’ve got some ideas on the subject, but it’s really none of my business. You’re going to have to ask her about that one.”

“Are you kidding?
 
That’ll be the day.”

His first instinct was to stay far away from questions like that, but then he began to remember what she’d said the first time he’d met her, about how she’d been doing a study of Carrington faces.
 
That was an odd thing to say.
 
What had she meant?
 
And if she was pregnant with no man in the picture….

He mulled it over for a couple of days before he decided to go ahead and ask her about it.
 
After all, she’d brought up the subject—in a way.
 

He waited until she went to the break room.
 
The café was pretty much empty.
 
Mickey was busy going over the books with Tag.
 
He looked around and figured no one would notice if he slipped back into the room where Amity was finishing up her lunch at the little folding table.
 

He walked in, she looked up in surprise and immediately hid a photograph she was looking at.
 

“Hey Amity,” he said, making it obvious he’d seen her hide the picture.
 
“What you got there?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, but her cheeks were bright red.
 

“Nothing.”
 
He sat down across from her.
 
“Would it have anything to do with what you told me about the other day?”

A nervous look came over her pretty face.
 
“What was that?”

“That you were making a study of Carrington faces.”
 
He gave her a level look.
 
“You really intrigued me with that.
 
I’ve been wondering ever since just what you meant.”
 
He gave a significant look to where her hand was hiding the picture.
 
“Could I see it?”

Her breath caught in her throat.
 
For a moment, he was sure she was going to say “no”.
 
But then she slid the photo out slowly.

“Sure,” she said.
 
“You tell me.
 
Who is this?”

He looked at the picture.
 
It was blurry, as if someone had copied it too many times and tried to blow it up too big.
 
But there was definitely recognition as he looked at it.
 

He had a whole family of cousins who looked very much like that.
 
Rafe Carrington, as one of the older ones, was the first that came to mind.
 
A wave of shock shot through him.
 

Rafe?
 
Was Rafe the guy she was looking for?

“So who is this?” he asked her, trying to sound casual.

“You tell me,” she said, studying his face.
 
“Who does it look like to you?”

He shrugged.
 
“It’s not a very good picture.
 
Could be anybody.”

She shook her head slowly.
 
Her eyes seemed to see right through him in ways that made him wince.
 

“No.
 
It’s a Carrington.
 
You know that.
 
Just look at it.”

Yes, he did know that.
 
But he wasn’t about to admit it to her. Not until he was on firmer ground as to what she was going to do with any information he might give her.
 
Right now, he could swear she was acting very much like a woman who is looking for the father of her baby.
 
But this seemed like a weird way to go about it.
 

“So tell me,” he said, staring at her, “who is this Carrington you’re searching for?”

She stared back, not any more ready to be open than he was.
   

“I don’t really know,” she said slowly.
 
“I haven’t met him yet.”

“Okay, this is what I don’t get,” he said later to Mickey when they had a chance to talk.
 
“She’s obviously searching for the man who is the father of her baby.”

Mickey nodded.
 
“That is my impression as well.”

“So—where does she think she’s going to find him?”

Mickey shrugged.
 
“Here?”

“You think?”

She nodded.
 
“Right here.
 
From the questions she’s asking, I would say she thinks it might be a Carrington.”

He frowned, confused.
 
“’Might be’?
 
But she would know, wouldn’t she?
 
I mean—she had to have been there.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you?”
 
Mickey shook her head.
 
“I don’t know.
 
But from what I’ve heard, she even has a picture.”
 
She shrugged.
 
“She hasn’t shown it to me.”

Scott grimaced.
 
He’d seen that picture, but did he have the right to talk about it?
 

“And who is in that picture?” he asked, just to nail down what picture they were talking about.
 

“A Carrington man, I guess.
 
I’ve even heard…”
 
She gave him a significant look.
 
“They say it looks a lot like Rafe.”

Scott shook his head, his brow furled.
 
“You know who else looks like Rafe?
 
His brother Darren.”

Mickey took in a deep breath.
 
“True.”

“Darren!
 
Oh my God.”
 
Scott made a face.
 
“I’ve seen the girl Darren is talking about getting married to.
 
She’s a beauty.
 
But she’s not Amity.”

Mickey nodded.
 
“And Amity has seen Darren a couple of times and hasn’t seemed to turn a hair.
 
So…”
 
She shrugged.
 
“It’s a mystery.”

Scott agreed.
 
“A mystery,” he echoed.
 
“And I have a feeling we don’t really want to know what it’s all about.”

Scott took a couple of jobs he wouldn’t usually take, just to get out of town and away from all the Carrington madness.
 
On a short hop to Canada, he stayed overnight in a hotel in Montreal.
 
In the middle of the night, he woke to the sound of a baby crying in the next room.
 

The funny thing was, for the first time in his life, his immediate reaction was to smile—as though the babies were back.
 

This wasn’t like him.
 
In the old days, his first thought would have been, “Won’t somebody shut that kid up?”
 
Now it was more benign.
 
Something had changed inside him.
 
Something had definitely changed.
 

But that was only a fringe issue to him right now.
 
His whole life had changed.
 
The question was, what was he going to do about it?

He’d had some hard times in his past.
 
He’d left home for college and then thrown himself into a new life when he was barely into his twenties, and for the most part, though he’d had to leave frayed relationships behind, he’d been happy with how his life had gone.
 
His work was fulfilling and made enough of an income to let him live a comfortable existence—an outcome his mother would have been surprised to see.
 
He had friends.
 
He had satisfying days, even with the lonely nights.
 
He’d been okay.