The Baby Invasion (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams) (9 page)

His smile was humorless and he shook his head.
 

“Until then, I was nanny to every one of my brothers and sisters. My mother’s pregnancies weren’t easy and she spent a lot of time in bed. Someone had to do the work. And there I was, a ready-made mother’s helper. When other guys were out playing baseball, I was inside, warming formula and sterilizing bottles. I spent my days changing diapers, fixing lunch boxes, cleaning up spilled milk, when I should have been studying to get into a good college, playing football, taking out some pretty cheerleader.”

 
His grin was bittersweet.
 

“Until I was eighteen, babies ruined my life.”

Cathy felt as though the force of his bitterness had hit her physically. There was barely concealed raw emotion behind his casual attitude. She had an urge to comfort him, but she knew without being told that he would hate that right now.

“So you see,” he was saying, “I know all there is to know about kids.”

She nodded. “I—I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Sorry?” His laugh sounded almost like it had before he’d started on this touchy subject. “Don’t be. I learned early what some men only wish they had before it was too late. Better to happen when you’re young and still have a way out, than when you’re older and you’ve made a commitment for life.”

His smile was perfectly friendly, yet Cathy felt as though she’d been slapped in the face. She knew he was warning her.
Don’t mess with me, honey.
 
I’m never going to change.
 

But she didn’t feel warned. She felt challenged. She wanted to shake him, wake him up, to prove him wrong.

But there wasn’t time for that now. She had other goals at the moment, other considerations to deal with. She took a deep breath and smiled back.

“But you do know what you’re doing around children. So you’re perfect,” she said sweetly. “You’re just what I need.”

The wariness came back into his face. “What are you talking about?”

“Could you... would you consider taking care of some of these kids while I go to Lake Tahoe for a few days?”

CHAPTER FIVE:

Just Like Old Times

He kept his face very still, but Cathy thought she detected a flash of pure panic in his eyes. He didn’t say a word, but his hands on the table spread and tensed against the butcher-block top.

“It would only be for a couple of days,” she hurried to add. “I... I assume you won’t be going out on another flight for a while. Don’t you pilots get big hunks of time in between trips? I’ll drive my van up. I could leave right away and be in Tahoe by noon tomorrow. Then, if I find what I’m looking for, I would be back on the road by evening.”

“And when do you sleep?” he pointed out edgily.

“Oh.” She thought fast. “Well, maybe I’d have to wait until the next morning to start back. But I would be back late that evening. And I would come right over and get the babies.”

“Would you?” His eyes were glinting dangerously and his tone was sardonic at best.

“Of course I would. You’d hardly have to spend any time with them at all. Just…just two days and two and a half nights.”

“Of pure hell. Shoot, I’d do that for anyone.”

He wasn’t buying, that was for sure. Cathy sighed, giving up. It had been a long shot from the get go.
 
She was going to have to find someone else to take care of the kids while she was gone.
 

But who? It wasn’t as if she had family around or friends who didn’t work.
 
She’d only lived in Destiny Bay for a few months and hadn’t had time to build a community of friends as yet.
 

She sat across from Scott looking wistful, her shoulders hunched, and he felt remorse. But not enough to offer to do the unthinkable. A surge of annoyance flashed through him.
 

“Are you going to explain to me why you’re having this sudden urge to take a vacation?” he asked evenly. “It seems like an odd time for it.”

“Vacation?” She stared, then realized what he meant. “Oh, no, it’s not that at all. I want to go up to Tahoe to look for April.”

“Ah.”
 

Well, that made it a little more understandable. But only a little. He looked at her blankly and then asked, slowly, “Okay. I’ll bite. Why Lake Tahoe?”

She gripped her hands together and took a deep breath.
 
“I have a theory. I think she may be there, maybe even staying at the Wild Horses Casino.” She shifted in her chair. “You see, on Saturday evening, before I had even begun to really worry, there was a phone call.
 
I picked up the receiver and said ‘hello.’ There was no answer. But I could tell someone was on the line.”

“You think it was April.”

“At the time, that didn’t occur to me. But looking back now, yes, I do think it was her. Just checking up, making sure I was here with her babies. And then, when she heard my voice, she hung up.”

Scott frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“I know. Neither do I.” She sighed, then squared her shoulders. “But there’s no use sitting around trying to analyze why she’s doing this. The thing is to find her. And there was a clue in that phone call.”

He looked skeptical. “Really?”

She nodded. “I could hear the jangle of slot machines in the background.”

He was becoming reluctantly intrigued now. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. And as far as I know, there are only a few places with that sort of slot machine action.”

“Oh sure.” His sarcasm was back. “Las Vegas. Henderson, Laughlin, Reno—should I go on?
 
Any Indian Reservation in California.
 
Just about any place in Nevada.”

“Including the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.” She rose from her chair and gestured. “Come on. Let me show you something.”

She led him into the living room, and using a chair as a stepladder, went up on her toes to plunge her hand deep inside a decorative urn on a high shelf.

“I honestly think April went through her entire house and obliterated everything that might give anyone a clue as to where she was going. But she forgot about these.” She pulled out a handful of match-books.

Scott took a few. On each cover was printed an ad for the Wild Horses Casino. “I wonder if Tawny has this one?” he muttered.

She glanced at him but had no idea what he was talking about and decided to skip it.

“Doesn’t that look clue-like?” she demanded, stepping down from her perch.

“Maybe,” he admitted reluctantly. He glanced up. “Have you tried calling the place and asking for her?”

She nodded. “They even tried paging her. No luck.”

“Well...”

“But that doesn’t mean anything. She could be there under a different name. And anyway, this is the only evidence of a place she might have gone to that I’ve found anywhere in the house. So I’d like to try it.” She gave him an impish smile. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

He regarded her balefully, still wary of her plan to dump the kids on him. “Possibly.”

And it turned out his fears were justified. She took a deep breath and tried one more time. “So, will you watch the kids for me while I go up?”

He felt very selfish, but he had to refuse.
 

“No.”

“Oh.”
 

Deflated once again, she started to turn away, but he reached out to stop her, his hands taking her shoulders. She wrenched herself out of his grasp, pulling away with a jerk that surprised them both.

She stared up at him, wishing she hadn’t done that. He gazed back, and only the slightest flicker in his eyes revealed that he had reacted to what she’d done. Her jerking away had been caused by doubt and disappointment, nothing more. Did he realize that? She hoped he wasn’t reading too much into it.
 

But she wasn’t sure what she could do now. Apologize? No. It didn’t feel right.

And anyway, he was already talking, speaking smoothly, not giving a hint that he might be offended or puzzled by her behavior.

“Cathy,” he was saying softly, “I know you think I’m just being that mean old man again, but it’s more than that.” He shrugged in a way that managed to be manly at the same time it radiated little-boy-lost appeal.

“I really don’t know if I could handle having primary responsibility for your kids for any length of time. And more than that, I don’t think you should go. You have no idea what April has gotten herself tangled up in. It could be dangerous.”

She shook her head, her frustration plain in the strained look she threw him. “I can’t just hang around here waiting,” she said tightly. “I’m going crazy. That man keeps calling and I’m afraid he’ll show up here.”

Scott’s gaze sharpened. “What man?”

She turned and flopped down into a corner of the couch, her feet pulled up close. “I told you about him. He sounds tough, kind of gangsterish. And he insists I must know where April is. He seems to want to find her in the worst way, and I can’t tell if it’s because he likes her or has something against her.”

Scott slipped down onto the other corner of the couch, frowning. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“You see why I want to get this settled? I don’t know why April left, why she wants to keep her trip a secret. Is she running from this man? Why didn’t she take her babies with her? Why doesn’t she call to let us know she’s okay? Is this guy who’s calling working for the mob?”
 

She sat huddled, full of worry, and stared at him. Wisps of corn-silk hair framed her face.
 

“I can’t just sit here any longer, waiting for something to happen! I’ve got to go out and make something give. I’ve got to.”

Watching her, he felt an overwhelming desire to take her in his arms. And this time he didn’t fight it. This time, he enjoyed it, letting his gaze linger on her lips, the outline of the rounded breasts beneath the pink cotton knit shirt, the long, slender legs.
 

Looking at her, he could almost convince himself that babies weren’t the minions from the netherworld he often thought them to be. More like minor annoyances. Mere gum in the works to be scraped aside at will. Whatever.

He knew he wanted to help her. She touched him. It wasn’t just her beauty. There was something in her eyes, something in the way her hand reached up to push back the strands of hair that insisted on falling over those eyes. He wanted to hold her tightly and make sure nothing bad was ever said or done anywhere near her. A slight shiver shook him and he grimaced, chasing away his fanciful feelings.

“Okay, this is ridiculous.
 
There has to be someone in this town who knows where April went.
 
There has to be someone who knows her, period.”

“Sure.
 
But how do I find that someone?”

He grimaced.
 
“I actually know a lot of people in Destiny Bay,” he admitted reluctantly.
 
“I’m a Carrington, after all.”

She blinked at him.
 
“Is that supposed to be a big deal or something?”

He laughed, loving the way she’d punctured his little bubble of self esteem so easily.
 
“That’s right, you’re not from around here, are you?
 
Yeah, Carringtons are pretty important in town.
 
Mostly because there are just so many of us.”

“Movers and shakers, huh?
 
Okay, make some calls or something.
 
That would be great.”

He took in a deep breath and thought about it.
 
He’d been so out of touch lately, he wasn’t sure who he could count on these days.
 

“Here’s what I’ll do.
 
Do you know a café down by the embarcadero,
Mickey’s on the Bay
?”

She shook her head.
 

“It’s kind of a Carrington hang out.
 
I’m going to run down there and see if I can find anyone who’s ever heard of April.
 
Maybe I can rustle up something.”

She shook her head.
 
“That would be great.”

He turned to smile at her, then touched her cheek lightly with the palm of his hand.
 

“Listen,” he told her. “Sit tight for tonight. In the morning, we’ll make plans.”

Cathy looked up. It was embarrassing to recognize that the wave of relief breaking over her was occasioned by his use of the word “we.” She hadn’t realized until he’d come into her life how alone she’d been with this problem. It helped just having someone else to talk it over with. But to have a partner—that was even better.

Cathy was usually an expert in the stiff upper lip department. Any woman left alone to cope with three small children had to be. And through the years, she’d done pretty well, with only the occasional good cry, something she saved for late evenings so the kids wouldn’t be upset. She could handle the cards she’d been dealt.

Handling three children of her own was one thing. But adding three additional kids who weren’t hers and whose mother had disappeared—that had brought her right up to the limits of her coping talents.

She had to admit it, she needed help. Any normal human being would. And right now it looked as though Scott was going to provide a bit of exactly what she needed most. The relief brought tears into her eyes and she blinked quickly, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Great,” she said, her voice husky. “Come over for breakfast and we can have a strategy session.”

“Good.” That husky voice cut right through him. He hesitated, knowing it was time to go, wishing he could think of a good excuse to stay.
 

He should go. Cathy was very tempting, but the babies and an ex-husband and a missing April—it was all getting very confusing.
 

What could he say to her? What did he want from her? What did she want from him?

He’d always been a fairly straightforward guy. Sometimes the truth was the most effective line around.
 

“Honesty is the best policy,” he muttered fiercely.