The Baby Invasion (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams) (24 page)
Read The Baby Invasion (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams) Online
Authors: Helen Conrad
“Ah “ His grin was slow and lazy. “Then it
is
a seduc
tion, after all. Tell me, do you audition all your potential escorts this way?”
She gave him a gentle glare and shook her head dismis
sively. There was no point arguing with the man. She just wanted him gone. She frowned with even more concentra
tion at her table, wondering if there was anything missing.
“Are you accepting applications?” he went on, seemingly teasing her.
She looked up again, letting her annoyance show. “What?”
He was oblivious, still in the best of moods.
“For the job
as your beau. If you’re auditioning this man, I’d like to
know how to get in on the action.”
He gave a lazy shrug that made him look exceptionally attractive and debonair.
“I can escort like crazy, and
I’ve got experience in chair holding and ordering French
wines.”
He gave her a long, appreciative glance that took in everything about her, from head to toe. With his easy self-
confidence, he didn’t mind letting her in on exactly how much he relished what he saw. At the same time, his eyes were full of laughter.
“Is there a waiting list?”
She blinked at him. His casual examination had thrown her for a bit of a loop and she’d only taken in about half of
what he’d said. What on earth was he talking about?
“You want to be an escort?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Do they really have jobs like that? But... but what about your job here?” She looked into his eyes and knew he was teasing her again. In exasperation she glanced around the
room. “Shouldn’t you be maitre d’ing or something?”
He looked nonplussed. “No. Why?”
She gestured toward the entry lobby. “People are queu
ing up,” she informed him. “It’s time to open the restaurant.”
“Ah.” He snapped back his cuff and examined his watch.
“You’re right. I guess I’ll go ahead and take my table.”
She frowned, still confused. “You...you don’t work here?”
“Work here?” He looked about him with a bemused smile. “No, I’m afraid not. I only arrived at the airport an hour ago.”
“Oh.” She felt foolish and then annoyed, because she was
pretty sure he’d led her down that prickly path on purpose just to see her stub her toe. “Sorry,” she mumbled, watch
ing him from beneath lowered lashes as he walked away.
He was walking out of her life.
And a good thing, too.
Just this short encounter had convinced her this was a man who could complicate things—such as emotions, commit
ments, plans for the future—with very little effort.
Still, she
couldn’t ignore him. He had that indefinable sense of presence that lit up a room and caused heads to turn. In all her years working for the newspaper at home, she’d only met a few men who had that, and they were invariably top executives or politicians or rock stars—men who commanded
attention and deserved it.
She shivered suddenly. A premonition? She hoped not.
He slid into a booth just across from the one she’d picked. From where she was planning to sit, his position would be
extremely visible right between a geranium and a pothos.
She wanted to ask him to move farther away, but the words
stuck in her throat. She had a feeling he would take per
verse pleasure in doing exactly the opposite of anything she might ask of him. She wasn’t sure why she was so certain of
this. But she knew it.
“Bon appetit,” he said pleasantly, waving a napkin her
way, his eyes shining with laughter in a manner that let her think he really might be reading her mind—and enjoying her dis
comfort. “And ‘bonne chance’.”
“Make that buena suerte,” she corrected, her eyes flash
ing fire at the infuriating man. “You’re in a Mexican restaurant, you know.”
He smiled at her and it was a smile that seemed to reach
out and curl around her. She looked away quickly. He was ruining her concentration. She was getting cold feet as it was, and his amused scrutiny wasn’t helping.
She slid into her own booth and waited nervously, her fingers locked together in a tortured crunch, wishing she’d
never let Ted talk her into this.
“Tempt the dear old colonel,” Ted had said on the last cell call she’d been able to take from Nebraska before taking the turnoff that took her to this remote island resort
. “Throw out some bait and see
if he snaps at it.”
Ted was very big on hunting and fishing metaphors. As her mother was always telling her, Ted was a solid rock of a
man. You couldn’t go wrong with good old Ted.
He was also her boss, publisher and managing editor of
the Sunflower Ledger, for which she currently wrote a food
column. She was used to following his advice. But she
wasn’t sure he’d been on the money this time.
“I’m not going to do anything of the sort,” she’d told him. “I’m not going to try to trap the man. I’m just going to get to know him better and make him see...”
“It’s the only way,” Ted had insisted. “You’ve got to make him think you’ve got money.
Big money.
If the man really
is a fortune hunter, he’ll make a pass. If he plays it straight,
then you’ll know you don’t have anything to worry about where your mother is concerned.”
She’d thought about it long and hard, but she just couldn’t force herself to do that to her own mother. In
stead, she was going to probe and pry and try to get to the
bottom of just what this Colonel Carrington wanted—and do
it in an honest, straightforward way.
Except for the flowers and things.
Everything had turned topsy-turvy since her mother had won the lottery prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Suddenly, predators had sprung from every bush. Her
mother, darling that she was, would have gladly handed out
contributions to everyone who appeared on her doorstep.
Luckily, Kat was made of sterner stuff. And had a more suspicious mind, as well—suspicions earned in the flesh, so to speak.
Someone had to be the dragon lady, the Medusa, the
guardian of the gate. The job had fallen to Kat by default.
She wanted to make sure her mother had that money to
protect her in the long run.
There was nothing else—no pension, no secret
nest egg. Her mother had worked for years as a clerk in their
local pharmacy in Nebraska, only to see the place close
down, leaving her with nothing. She’d had a few tense years. Now she could finally take it easy—as long as she didn’t lose all that wonderful money
to some sharp operator. And there certainly were plenty of
those around.
When her mother had made plans to come out to
the Central California resort town of Nueva Bahia on her own, Kat had been wary. But her mother had been adamant. It had always been a dream of
hers to go on a trip like this.
Kat had reluctantly watched her fly off, fearing the worst. And when the phone calls had
started coming back to Nebraska, full of glowing reports about this handsome gentleman who was being so kind, so
attentive, Kat had been pretty sure her fears were being re
alized.
Kat had met the colonel shortly after she’d arrived to check things out. The man had impressed her as an old-
fashioned charmer, but she’d been hoping against hope that
he was on the up-and-up. Now she was about to do what she
could to find out the truth.
“Senorita Clay, the colonel has arrived.”
“Ah.
Thank you.”
Her fingers felt like ice. How was she going to shake
hands with him? Bracing herself, she turned and put a smile
on her face.
“
Above-all
,” she told herself silently, “
relax
.”
Destiny Bay~Baby Dreams~Book 3
by Helen Conrad
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