The Great Baby Caper (27 page)

Back
to Contents

When Courtney arrived home, it was
to see Mark sitting in her rocking chair, rocking a six-month-old-baby. Noting
her approach, Mark grinned and the infant, in frilly pink dress and booties,
gurgled up at Courtney. With her wispy blond curls, rounded face, and huge blue
eyes, she was absolutely adorable.

“What is Hannah doing here?”
Courtney asked.

Mark stood with the child.
“Christy and Steve dropped her off.”

“You’re kidding. Why?”

Mark grinned. “Why don’t you
guess?”

For a moment, Courtney was
dumbstruck. “Oh, no, you don’t mean—”

“They’ve left on a cruise. Your
mom has their older girl, Mary Ellen, but didn’t feel she was up to keeping an
infant—”

“Because she still has a bum
ankle?” Courtney finished.

“Precisely. It’s not healing as
quickly as the doctor had hoped.”

Courtney groaned. “Mark, this is a
conspiracy. Why did you agree again?”

“Look at her, love. Wouldn’t you
agree?”

Courtney glanced down at the baby,
who grinned back at her toothlessly. She remembered Vanessa’s words and began
laughing. Tender, joyous laughter. “You know, you’re right. I would have
agreed. Give me that little angel.”

Mark slipped the baby into
Courtney’s arms. As Courtney inhaled the baby’s sweet scent and touched the soft
skin of her little arm, Hannah hugged Courtney and cooed, then planted a juicy
kiss on her cheek.

“Ah, yes, Christy asked me to warn
you that Hannah is at the kissing stage.”

Courtney was making faces at
Hannah, who chortled in response. “That’s okay. I love kisses.”

“Do you?” Mark kissed the baby’s
cheek, then tenderly claimed Courtney’s lips.

“Hey, that wasn’t an invitation.”

“It sounded like one to me.”

“As if you need one. So we’ll have
the little darling—”

“For five days.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

For a moment Mark tenderly watched
the two. “When I see you with her, all I can think of is the two of us and our
coming child. When are you doing to tell your family, Courtney?”

Realizing he deserved an answer,
she replied, “Well, I’m not sure. Perhaps when we can catch everyone in town
together.”

“You’re not going to wait till
you’re really showing and just let them guess, are you?”

“No, I wouldn’t do that.”

He slipped his arms around her.
“Look at her, Courtney.”

“I know.”

“We’ll have one just like her soon.
Nothing’s more important, right?”

Courtney cuddled the baby close
and kissed her soft cheek. She remembered Vanessa’s wise words, so like Mark’s
now. “You’re right. Nothing’s more important.”

***

Mark stayed around for five days
to help with Hannah, then left for another week-long trip to London. Courtney
was too busy to go with him, but missed him terribly. She also spent her time
planning a dinner party for her entire family, so she and Mark could break the
news about the baby.

The evening Mark was scheduled to
return home, Courtney again took special care with her appearance, bathing,
then donning a brand-new, blue lace negligee and matching peignoir. Then as she
paced the living room, eager for his arrival, she felt a funny fluttering deep
inside her belly. Stopping in her tracks with a gasp of awe, she placed her
fingers on her stomach, and felt the tiniest kick. She shouted in joy and felt
tears burning her eyes. During her last check-up, her doctor had told her the
baby should start moving soon, and she was overwhelmed by this delightful
evidence that the child lived inside her.

Then she heard Mark’s key at her
door.

She hurried across the room and
flung it open. Mark was there, rumpled and weary as before, but there. Never
had she been so glad to see him.

He took one look at her face and
asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” She pulled him inside
the apartment, throwing her arms around him and stretching upward to kiss him.
“Welcome home, Mark. Our baby just moved for the first time.”

He backed away, eyes awed. “He
moved?”

She took his hand and drew it to
her belly. “Yes. Feel it.”

Mark waited in rapt anticipation,
until the fluttering began against his fingers. “My God, you’re right.”

Courtney smiled radiantly. “He
knew his daddy was coming home.”

Never had she seen such joy as lit
Mark’s eyes then. He pulled her close, his arms trembling around her. “Oh,
Courtney, Courtney, I think that’s the dearest thing you’ve ever said.” He
kissed her fervently and sweetly.

“Welcome home, Daddy.”

They didn’t make it to the
bedroom, making beautiful love on the couch again.

***

Two nights later, Mark and
Courtney treated her entire family to dinner at her favorite Italian
restaurant. The whole gang was present, gathered about the long table in the
private dining room.

Halfway through the meal, Jason
called out, “Hey, Courtney, Mark, what’s the occasion?”

Courtney was seated next to Mark
at the head of the table. The two exchanged a conspiratorial look, then
Courtney called back, “Do Mark and I need a special occasion to invite my
family out to dinner?”

“Jason’s got a point,” put in Joe
Kelly. “The last time you invited the whole crew out to dinner was several
years ago, when you announced you’d been hired at BBB.”

Courtney laughed. “Okay.” She glanced
at Mark, and he winked tenderly. “Mark and I are expecting.”

As cheers went up from all, Susan
Kelly declared, “I was wondering when you’d tell us.”

“Mom!” cried Courtney.

“A mother always knows,” Susan
replied smugly.

Courtney glanced around the table.
“Did the rest of you know, too?”

“Well, we had our suspicions,”
admitted Carla. “You know, quick weddings and all.”

Brittany popped up, ran over, and
hugged Mark. “I knew you and Aunt Cor’ney would have a baby soon! Didn’t I tell
you, Aunt Cor’ney?”

“Yes, dear, you sure did,” she
said, ruffling the child’s hair.

Brittany addressed Mark. “Will you
make it a girl, please, Uncle Mark? I already have a brother boy.”

Mark chuckled. “We’ll try our
best, dear.”

“When’s your due date?” called out
Caryn.

Before Courtney could answer, Joe
scolded, “Wait a minute, here. Aren’t all of you forgetting that
congratulations are in order?”

“Congratulations, Mark and
Courtney,” said Caryn, and quickly the others followed suit with good wishes of
their own.

“Thank you all,” said a beaming
Mark.

“So when’s your due date?” Caryn
repeated, and everyone laughed.

Courtney took a deep breath, then
admitted, “January 9.” She glanced sharply about the table, saw her sisters and
her mom exchange meaningful looks, though thankfully no one snickered.

“Oooh—a New Year’s baby,” put in
Christy ecstatically, clapping her hands.

“Perhaps even a Christmas baby,”
suggested Joe, Jr.

“I can’t wait to give you a
shower,” gushed Susan. “Buying for babies is so much fun.”

“Especially at Bootle’s Baby
Bower,” put in Courtney, and sounds of merriment again poured forth.

Joe Kelly lifted his glass. “To
Mark and Courtney, and a healthy, happy baby.”

“Hear! Hear!” declared the others.

As her family toasted them,
Courtney glanced at Mark and melted at the look of pride and love in his eyes.
He squeezed her hand and leaned over to whisper at her ear. “That wasn’t so
bad, was it, darling?”

She happily shook her head.

“Don’t worry,” he added wickedly.
“I’m going to reward you when we get home.”

Courtney beamed back at her
husband; she could hardly wait.

Back
to Contents

August stretched toward September.
Courtney’s stomach continued to grow, she advanced into maternity clothes, and
felt the baby kicking every day. Her doctor pronounced that she was thriving.

She kept busy with her duties at
work, and Mark made a couple of more trips to London. Although they enjoyed
their times together, the tension of unresolved issues still simmered beneath
the surface.

As far as their love life was
concerned, Courtney had pretty much given up on keeping Mark out of her
apartment, and her bed. Staying apart from him only seemed to make matters
worse for them both, and she didn’t need that kind of tension in her life right
now.

They had some good times together,
too, especially when it came to planning for the child. They began turning her
spare room into a nursery, building it around the cradle Mark had bought her on
Mackinac Island. Mark painted the room yellow and installed the wallpaper
border of nursery animals that Courtney had chosen. Together they selected all
the other furnishings and accessories for the room from Bootle’s Baby Bower.

But Courtney still wasn’t sure how
to feel about her marriage. Could she and Mark make it? Would she be a good
mother, and Mark a good father? Sometimes when she caught Mark staring at her
with both tenderness and worry, she wondered if he wasn’t feeling these same
doubts.

Courtney read as much as she could
on pregnancy and labor and, after consulting with her doctor, she decided she
wanted to give natural childbirth with a midwife a try. When she informed Mark,
she found he was surprisingly supportive, and learned he had already read much
on the subject, too. Together they began visiting hospital birthing centers,
and also registered for birthing classes. Mark did manage to attend most of
them, missing only a few while he was out of the country. At the classes they
met some other young parents and learned that their anxieties regarding
parenthood were quite common.

Courtney found she and Mark were
partially reassured on this score on Labor Day weekend. As if in determination
to make this a perfect record, her sister Caryn left her twin boys, Jake and
Jeff, with Courtney and Mark while she and her husband Mike went on a cruise.
By the time this third set of young houseguests landed on them, Courtney and
Mark were seasoned veterans, and had come to accept the enforced babysitting
with a real sense of fun and humor. And Courtney had to admit that the three
sessions had given her and Mark both necessary training and confidence in their
own parenting skills.

During this same period, there
were no more incidents of espionage at Bootle’s Baby Bower, although Lon Wilson
did report to Courtney that the digital expert they’d hired had uncovered
several alarming attempts to penetrate the computer network firewall at
corporate headquarters. The efforts failed, and Lon suspected a single
perpetrator was behind the mischief, although their IT staff as well as the
consultant had been unable to track down the offender so far.

Otherwise, their operations were
left unscathed. Courtney often wondered at this. Why had the mischief cropped
up so suddenly, then just as abruptly come to a halt? The first time this had
occurred, it was when Mark had left the country. And this latest lull happened
soon after Courtney had confronted both Mark and his grandfather about possibly
being involved. The coincidences bothered her a lot. She tabled any suspicions
of Mark, for he had proved himself to be a man of integrity; but M. Billingham
Bootle was another matter entirely.

Then something really strange
happened in mid-September, when BBB hosted its annual dinner party to honor its
founder’s birthday. Courtney and Mark attended the posh gala held at a downtown
private club, and were seated on either side of M. Billingham at the head
table. Courtney gritted her teeth during all the gushing tributes to the
chairman; she made a short speech herself, mostly praising her boss’s business
prowess. Then Mark stood and led a toast to his grandfather. Courtney noted a
lot of pained looks during the speeches, particularly from Gideon and Getz, who
kept whispering to one another.

The next day, as was also
traditional, M. Billingham dispatched a previously prepared memo to all company
employees, thanking them for their support. But this time when the
official-looking document landed on Courtney’s desk, she read it in stunned
silence. She just couldn’t believe what the memo said:

Dear Employees of Bootle’s Baby
Bower:

This is to thank you for your
undying patience and support in dealing with the world’s biggest jackass. I am
taking this opportunity to inform you that I, M. Billingham Bootle, am a
bad-tempered tyrant, a disloyal skunk, and a generally rotten person. I am
deserving of neither your respect nor the chairmanship of this company. Instead
I should be pilloried, throttled, drawn and quartered, slapped silly, and
generally hoisted on my own petard.

I admit before God and this
company my myriad and heinous crimes. I am a martinet, a slave driver, a
scoundrel, and a heathen. I have rotting teeth and bad personal hygiene. I
terrorize my employees and send small children running out of my path. I never
tip the paperboy, and have books overdue at the library. I steal candy from
babies.

Being worthy of nothing more than
to be dropped into the nearest tar pit, I hereby beg your forgiveness and bid
you adieu, so that I may go shoot myself and put myself out of my misery.

Regretfully yours,

M. Billingham Bootle

Courtney finished the missive,
then chortled loudly. A moment later Deb burst inside her office, appearing
panic-stricken. “Boss, did you read that memo?”

“Did I ever!”

“I just heard from Mr. Bootle’s
assistant, Mildred. She’s totally freaked out, and informed me Mr. Bootle just
summoned all executives to the conference room.”

Lips twitching, Courtney stood.
“Guess that means me.”

When Courtney slipped inside the
conference room, most of the executives were already gathered there. A
red-faced M. Billingham was pacing and waving a copy of the memo.

“I repeat, who did this?” he
demanded. “I’ve already spoken with my assistant, and Mildred swears she put
the right memos in everyone’s mailboxes last night. I tend to believe her,
since she hasn’t the imagination for this.” Furiously, he crumpled the paper
and tossed it, hitting Al Gideon in the head. Al flinched and several others
snickered, but no one dared to make a comment.

A harried-looking Lon Wilson spoke
up. “Sir, I just checked with IT, and evidently someone hacked into our
computer system last night using your password.”

“My password!” M. Billingham
bellowed. “How the hell did anyone get that?”

“We don’t know, sir.” Lon
nervously consulted some notes. “But the letter was revised at 8:30 p.m., while
all of us were at dinner.”

“Aha!” cried M. Billingham,
glancing suspiciously about the table. “A nice little alibi one of you has
managed to create.”

“Sir, this was most likely done by
someone actually here at the office, which rules out anyone present now.”

“Not necessarily,” M. Billingham
shot back. “One of you could have hired it done, or hacked in remotely.”

“Well, I suppose,” Lon replied.
“At any rate, the perp—or hired gun—would also have had to take all of the legitimate
copies of your memo out of the mailboxes, then replace them with the fraudulent
ones.”

M. Billingham turned to Courtney.
“Who was here last night?”

She frowned. “Really, no one but
the cleaning people—although I believe Deb mentioned that an additional,
special crew was coming in to shampoo all the rugs.”

“So someone from this office might
have bribed someone from this rug crew?”

“I suppose,” Courtney murmured,
frowning. “But doesn’t it stretch credibility a bit to assume a carpet
shampooer would know how to access our computers and hack into your personal
files?”

“Damn it.” M. Billingham waved a
hand and began prowling about again. “This is outrageous! I can’t believe
someone had the gall to do this to me. A heathen I’m called. Why, I attend
church every Sunday in my late wife’s memory, I’ll have you know. And rotting
teeth. My dentist would have apoplexy at the very thought. Not to mention bad
personal hygiene.” He swung about toward Courtney.

“Definitely not true, sir,” she
assured him, while struggling not to smile.

“It’s just a terrible affront, Mr.
Bootle—totally unwarranted,” agreed Gil Getz. “Especially calling you a
bad-tempered tyrant.”

“Indeed.” M. Billingham made a
growling sound and pounded a fist on the table. “Now all of you get off your
overpaid behinds and go find the responsible party!”

“We will, sir, you can rest
assured,” said Lon Wilson.

“Well, I’m not resting at all till
this infiltrator is found, and I’d advise that the rest of you not to park your
fannies, either. Otherwise, heads will roll.”

“Yes, sir,” said Al Gideon.

“And one more thing,” M.
Billingham ranted. “I want all of you to get something straight. I may be a
slave driver. I may have a very short fuse. But this is BBB Ltd., a wholesome
enterprise promoting family values.” Drawing a seething breath, he finished, “I
have never,
ever
, stolen candy from a baby.”

He turned about and marched out of
the room, slamming the door. There was a moment of silence, then everyone,
including Courtney, burst out laughing. Glancing about the table, Courtney
sobered somewhat as she remembered Gideon and Getz snickering together at the
dinner party. She must ask Lon to keep a special eye on those two.

***

Around this time, Mark had planned
another trip to London. A few days before he was scheduled to leave, he
surprised Courtney over breakfast by simply handing her a ticket. “Please come
with me this time.”

Courtney hesitated. Mark had asked
her to accompany him a couple times before and she’d said no. But things
weren’t as hectic at work right now. True, they hadn’t yet found the person who
had roasted M. Billingham with the fake memo, but no further mischief had
occurred since then.

She glanced up at Mark, saw the
love and desperate hope on his face, and totally melted. She reached out and squeezed
his hand. “Sure.”

His eyes lit up. “Really?”

She nodded. “My doctor says that
if I’m to do any traveling, it’s best done during my second trimester, and that
will be over soon.”

He reached out to pat her
burgeoning belly. “Quite true, my love.”

“And I would like to see your London.”

Tenderly he whispered, “I’d like
to make it
our
London.”

Feeling a bit put on the spot, she
went on in a rush, “I’d also like to meet your sisters and their families while
we’re there, if that’s possible.”

“Absolutely. I’ve already
mentioned to Beth and Merry that I hoped you might come with me next time. They
told me just to say the word, and we’ll all get together for dinner.” Mark
leaned over the table to kiss her. “Darling, you’ve no idea how happy you’ve
made me.”

Courtney was happy, too, though
tempted to say,
Please don’t assume this means I’ll live with you there
.
But Mark seemed so delighted, she didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble.