Kitabı oku: «The Baby Surprise», sayfa 3

“Don’t go looking for her on my account,” Devon said before she could finish that. Then he changed the subject. “But there’s one thing I have been considering since you showed up at my door yesterday. I think I should be with you when you tell Brian Rooney what’s going on.”

“Why is that?”

“A couple of reasons. He’s kind of a hothead for one and it’s hard to say how he’ll take this.”

“Oh, so I can spring it on you but you don’t think I can spring it on him?”

“I’d just feel better if you didn’t have to spring it on him by yourself. Plus, just in case he does something stupid—like refuse to give blood for the test— I’d like to be there to help persuade him. Since I have a pretty high stake in this.”

For a moment Keely studied Devon, wondering what form his persuasion might take and if it was wise to have him along when she told the other man about Harley.

He did have a high stake in this, she conceded. And she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being on her own when she told yet another complete stranger—a complete stranger who apparently had a short fuse—that he might be the father of Clarissa’s child.

“What did you have in mind in the way of ‘persuading’ him if he refuses to give blood?” she asked.

Devon smiled again. “I won’t bring along a baseball bat, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I just want to be there as your backup.”

Was there a hint of flirting in that last part?

Keely couldn’t be sure. But even so, it caused goose bumps to erupt up and down her arms.

“Let me think about it,” she hedged, suddenly more concerned with her involuntary response to this man than with what might happen between him and Brian Rooney if she got them together.

“Okay,” Devon said, easily accepting that it was her decision.

He stood then. “I should probably get going.”

Keely fought a huge rise of disappointment, but she stood, too, absolutely forbidding herself to say anything to delay his departure. This was business, after all, not a social call, and their business, for the moment, was concluded.

“Have you taken Harley into the lab for his blood test yet?” Devon asked on the way to the front door once he’d replaced his sport coat.

“Not yet, no.”

“Then how about if I pick you both up tomorrow and we go together?”

That caught Keely off guard.

“Harley’s naps kind of dictate things,” she said as they reached the entry, realizing that really wasn’t an answer.

“I’m flexible. What’s good for you?”

“It’s usually hard to get much done until two-thirty or three in the afternoon.”

“That’s fine. And then after we hit the lab, how would you feel about a trip to the zoo?”

“The zoo?” Keely repeated, even more confused. Was he just trying to arrange some time to get better acquainted with Harley? Or was there something else to this?

“I’ve signed on to take pictures for a new fundraising brochure—” He cut himself short and explained, “I’m a wildlife photographer. Anyway, I wanted to take a look around, get some preliminary ideas of what I might want to shoot. And since it’s the zoo, I was thinking—zoo, kids—maybe you and Harley might like to go.”

It seemed reasonable enough when he said it like that. And not as if he had any ulterior motives. Maybe it was just a friendly invitation to something he had to do whether they went along or not, and there honestly wasn’t anything else to it. Except maybe getting more comfortable with Harley.

“Harley would love it,” she admitted, making sure Devon knew the baby was the only reason she would consider it. “And I suppose it would be a good treat after putting him through whatever the lab has to do to him. It would also give the two of you more exposure to each other in case you do turn out to be father and son.”

And maybe she was just rationalizing because she wanted to go. Although it wasn’t the animals in the zoo that were inspiring her. It was the company she’d be keeping. She just didn’t want to admit that, even to herself.

“Great,” Devon said into her wandering thoughts. “Then I’ll come by around two-thirty and we’ll go whenever Harley wakes up.”

“All right.”

Devon opened the door to leave but before he did he paused.

“There’s something else that keeps bothering me about this whole thing,” he said then, sounding reluctant to bring it up. “You may not know the answer to this, but Clarissa never wanted to have kids. I’m surprised she went through with it.”

“I do know the answer to that because she told us. But I’m not sure you want to hear it.”

“I’d rather hear it than go on wondering.”

“Until the letter, the only thing she said about Harley’s dad was that things hadn’t worked out with him and she’d gone on to greener pastures. Those ‘greener pastures’ involved a very wealthy man who owned a yacht and she’d taken off with him to sail the south seas.”

“No sense letting any grass grow under her feet just because she’d been juggling two other men,” Devon said.

“She spent several months sailing,” Keely continued, “and she said she lost track of a lot of time. And since her…cycles…were never regular anyway and she’d always practiced safe sex, it didn’t even cross her mind that she could be pregnant. It wasn’t until after she’d started to show that she even went to a doctor and by then it was too late to terminate the pregnancy. She was pretty open about the fact that she regretted not having had that option because she would have taken it.”

Actually, what Clarissa had said was that condom failure and not being able to have an abortion were the worst things that had ever happened to her, but Keely didn’t want to repeat it that way.

Devon nodded. “I guess that explains it.” Then he focused those blue eyes on her and smiled again. “I think Harley was lucky he fell into your hands when he did.”

Keely didn’t know how to respond to that, so all she said was, “He has us wrapped around his little finger.”

“Now I know he’s really a lucky man,” Devon said with a devilish grin.

He was looking at her very intently and for no reason Keely could imagine, she was suddenly struck with an overwhelming curiosity about what it might be like to have him kiss her.

Which, of course, was too ridiculous an idea to entertain, and she told herself so.

But there it was anyway—that handsome-in-the-extreme face not too far away, and those piercing eyes, and those smooth lips. And kissing was definitely what she was thinking about….

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then,” she blurted out, not intending to sound as if she were encouraging him to leave, but sounding that way just the same because she was in too much of a panic to escape those other, horribly inappropriate and unwanted thoughts. And inclinations.

“I’ll be here,” he assured, taking his cue and stepping out onto her porch. “Enjoy what’s left of your evening,” he added as he headed down the steps to his waiting SUV.

Why did I have to do that? she asked herself disgustedly, wishing she hadn’t just nearly kicked him out.

But even as she chastised herself she still stood there in the open doorway and watched him go, taking in the sight of a rear end that surely qualified for derriere of the decade.

And all the while she wondered what Clarissa Coburn had gotten her into.

On a more personal level.

Chapter Three

A trip to the Denver Zoo on a sixty-eight-degree autumn afternoon when the sky was a crystal-clear blue dome and only the slightest breeze rustled through gilded leaves so bright they looked like mirror reflections of the sun? Of course Keely was looking forward to it.

And if the outing had been uppermost in her mind every minute since she’d opened her eyes that morning? And if, at two o’clock that afternoon, it was still uppermost in her mind as she headed upstairs for her bedroom to change out of her sweatsuit and primp as if she were about to embark on an important date?

She tried to tell herself it didn’t necessarily mean anything. It didn’t necessarily mean she was nearly pulsating with eagerness to see Devon Tarlington again. It could mean that she was merely looking forward to going to the zoo.

Except that she knew that wasn’t true, and she couldn’t let it stand. Not when she was also contemplating changing into the bra that made her look two sizes bigger under the snug-fitting split-V-neck olive sweater she’d spent too much time deciding on last night and had laid out as carefully as if it were a prom dress.

So maybe she needed to quit skirting the issue and really think this over, she told herself as she closed her bedroom door behind her.

Okay. What was it about Devon Tarlington that had her awake half the night thinking about him? What was it about him that had her distracted from her work all day with uncontrollable eagerness for this afternoon? What was it about him that had her recalling every word he’d said? Every word she’d said? Picturing every detail and nuance of the man?

He was drop-dead gorgeous—that was the most obvious answer. He was so handsome that she was sure heads would actually turn when he walked into a crowded room. Jaws might even drop.

And it didn’t help that his looks didn’t seem to be something he worked at. He didn’t even seem aware that his face could have been sculpted out of marble by an old master’s hand. He certainly didn’t give the impression that he was concerned with it. Or affected by it. Which, of course, only increased his appeal.

Plus he had a pretty great personality. He had just enough of a bad-boy air to give him an edge. He was smart and apparently talented if he could make a living as a wildlife photographer. He was a tease, but not in a snide, hurtful way. His teasing was purely flattering.

He was also easy to talk to, and he was taking an awkward situation and doing his best to deal with it—that was no small thing even if his efforts were somewhat stilted.

And that body! Holy cow, what a body! No woman could get a glimpse of all those muscles, of all those perfect proportions, and not notice, not think about what she’d been in close proximity to, not itch to run her hands over bulging biceps and broad shoulders and hard pectorals and honed back and taut rear end.

He was just plain sexy. He exuded it in everything he did. Every movement of his hands—big, long-fingered hands. Every nod of his head. Every smile. Every everything.

All in all, what wasn’t there to like about him? Keely asked herself as she peeled off the sweats, suddenly not only wanting to change her clothes, but needing to cool down, too.

But if she was honest with herself, there was one thing not to like. Well, not to dislike necessarily. But certainly there was one thing wrong with any scenario that revolved around him—he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being a dad. And now he might be a dad whether he liked it or not and, to Keely at least, that spelled trouble with a capital T.

Not that she didn’t want kids herself, because she did. She wanted a family. She wanted a husband—another husband—and kids.

But she wanted it all the old-fashioned way this time. She wanted to meet a great guy, fall in love with him and marry him without any strings attached. And then she wanted to have kids. Together. Their own kids. Mutually decided upon kids that they would both want. Kids they would be equally devoted and committed to. Kids they would both love. Kids they would both nurture and raise, together.

And unless she missed her guess, that wasn’t part of Devon Tarlington’s game plan.

So, on the one hand, if Devon wasn’t Harley’s dad, a relationship with him was unlikely to put her any closer to her own goals.

And, on the other hand, if Devon did prove to be Harley’s dad, then Keely believed that any woman he brought into their lives was likely to be added as much to help with Harley, to raise Harley, as because Devon actually wanted that woman. Which was a bad basis for a relationship—something she knew only too well.

So, either way, no matter how gorgeous the guy might be, no matter how personable or how sexy, she would not let herself be swept up in anything that either cost her what she wanted in her own life, or thrust her into a situation that repeated history for her.

“Then why are you putting on this bra?” she asked herself as she did, thinking that that was the best question yet.

She wanted to pretend—as she had with Hillary the previous evening—that it was just to make Devon Tarlington eat his heart out over what he couldn’t have. But she knew that excuse wasn’t any more true today than it had been last night.

And what was the truth was that she wanted him to notice her as much as she noticed him. She wanted him to find her as attractive. As appealing.

Even though she could have kicked herself for it.

Keely suddenly deflated onto the edge of her bed and put her face in her hands.

“What am I doing?” she wailed.

But as she mentally read herself the riot act, something else began to creep into her thoughts.

Maybe she was wrong about him….

It was possible, wasn’t it? After all, she’d just met this guy. How, on the basis of only two brief encounters, could she say he’d probably never want kids or that he’d try to rope someone else into caring for Harley if Harley was his? Just because he hadn’t welcomed the news that he could be a father didn’t necessarily mean that he’d thought it was never in the cards for him or that he hadn’t planned to be a participating part of the parental equation if he did become a dad.

“So maybe he should be cut some slack.”

Keely got up from the bed and pulled on the olive-green sweater, bypassing the whole bra issue as this new train of thought gained some steam.

Should she cut Devon Tarlington some slack? she wondered on the way to her vanity to do her makeup.

Everyone deserved the benefit of the doubt. That was something she’d said more times than she could count to clients who had her search for someone they weren’t particularly happy with. It was a caution she gave—Ask questions, find out the whole story before you jump to any conclusions.

But what was she doing? She was jumping to conclusions.

So she should cut Devon Tarlington some slack until she knew for sure whether or not he fit into either of the slots she’d already carved out for him.

And in the meantime, maybe she should also get to know him. A little, anyway.

That thought made something else occur to Keely.

Shouldn’t she get to know Devon? Didn’t she have a responsibility to Harley to find out what kind of man she might be turning him over to? She was his guardian. Well, one of them, anyway. And even if, legally, she was going to have to turn the baby over to whichever man proved to be his dad, it seemed like she should know that that person would do right by the baby.

“Talked yourself into that pretty neatly, didn’t you?” she muttered to her reflection in the mirror as she brushed on blusher, applied mascara and lipstick, and then finger-combed her hair to let it fall into unfettered curls around her shoulders.

Okay, sure, she had to admit that she’d managed to get around her own initial instincts about Devon Tarlington to give herself permission to get to know him. But the points were valid just the same—he didn’t deserve to be prejudged and she did feel a responsibility to make sure Harley wasn’t handed over to someone he shouldn’t be handed over to.

And if Devon fell into one of those two slots she’d been initially inclined to put him in then at least it would be enough to put a damper on the attraction she felt for him.

“And if he turns out to be Harley’s dad and you think he’ll be a crummy one?” she asked herself.

But the answer to that was simple. If Devon Tarlington turned out to be the baby’s father and she thought he’d make a crummy dad, she would do something about it to make sure Harley ended up in the best possible home.

And that went for Brian Rooney, too. If he was Harley’s dad, Keely vowed she’d check him out and wouldn’t let him have Harley until she was satisfied he’d do right by the baby.

With everything settled in her mind, Keely felt a hundred percent better. About Harley’s future—which she hadn’t even realized until that moment had been worrying her—and about her own course with Devon Tarlington.

She just hoped, for Harley’s sake, that whoever turned out to be his father would make a good one.

And if, deep down, her hopes also had a little something to do with herself if Devon did prove to be the dad?

She just decided it was probably better not to go there.

“All the bad parts are over now and we just get to have fun,” Keely told Harley as she unstrapped him from the infant carrier in the back seat of Devon’s SUV later that afternoon.

She was glad that Harley didn’t seem any the worse for wear by then and that he’d finally stopped crying. He hadn’t liked the needle stick to draw blood at the lab on their last stop. His protests had been loud and Keely had felt terrible for having to submit him to anything that caused him pain.

Devon had squirmed a bit himself. Not over the procedure, but over the noise Harley had made. He was visibly embarrassed and even the nurse’s assurances that she was used to it didn’t seem to put him at ease.

By the end, Keely had come out of the lab unsure whether Harley or Devon had been more shaken by the experience, and between Harley’s continuing lament in the car and Devon’s near silence, the drive to the zoo had not been a lot of fun.

But now they were there and parked, and Harley had stopped crying and Devon seemed to have relaxed again.

“Oh, that’s a nice smile,” she told Harley in response to the sweet grin he gave her as she lifted him out of his car seat. Then, to Devon, she said, “See? He’s fine now.”

Devon looked for himself from the open hatchback of the SUV as he took out the stroller. But he still seemed wary and his only response was, “If you tell me what to do with this I’ll set it up for him.”

Keely gave him instructions and, by the time she brought Harley around to the rear of the SUV, the stroller was locked in the open position and ready for the baby.

“Want to see how to buckle him into this, too?” she asked. She’d already given the demonstration on securing the car seat with seatbelts and then on strapping Harley into it, and now she showed Devon how to do the stroller as well.

“Taking him anywhere is complicated, isn’t it?” he commented.

“You get used to it,” she assured. “I consider it good exercise.”

Devon chuckled at that. “Seems to be working,” he said, giving her an appreciative smile that sent a flood of warm fuzzy feelings through Keely.

Warm fuzzy feelings she tamped down because they had no business sprouting up.

“If you’ll hand me the diaper bag, it has its own place on the stroller so we don’t have to carry it,” she said, forcing herself back to business.

Once she had the diaper bag in place she said, “That’s it. We’re ready to roll.”

“Just let me get my gear.”

Devon closed the hatchback and went around to the side door to remove a leather camera bag from the floor behind the driver’s seat, setting it on the seat to unzip it. Keely and Harley watched Devon attach a strap to the camera inside the bag and then pull it out of the case, slipping the strap over his head so it went diagonally across his broad chest. Then he loaded his pockets with what seemed to be other lenses and gizmos she didn’t recognize.

On a less-commanding man the camera slung around his neck and shoulder might have looked nerdy. It might have made him look like an overzealous tourist. But on Devon—dressed in jeans and a black mock turtleneck—it only added an element of intrigue.

With everything in place, Devon locked the car and they headed for the zoo’s entrance. He had only to show the girl in the ticket booth a VIP card and they were allowed free entrance.

“We’ll just follow you since you’re here for a reason,” Keely informed Devon.

“I haven’t been here since I was a kid so let’s just follow the path and look at everything,” he answered. “I need a general idea of the whole place anyway. The pictures I take will only be preliminary, to get an idea of angles, lighting, things like that.”

Then, without warning, he raised his camera to his eye and took a snapshot of her.

“Yuck. I hate to have my picture taken,” she complained, worrying instantly about her hair and if she’d been squinting or making a funny face.

“You shouldn’t hate it,” he countered. “You’re very photogenic.”

He said that off-the-cuff and yet still it managed to have a flirting quality to it that brought back the warm fuzzies for a moment before Keely got them under control again.

They set off on the paved path that took them past the outside exhibits and to the enclosed ones.

Harley had definitely recovered from the lab trauma and since he was well-rested, he held on to the front bar of the stroller with two pudgy little hands to pull himself up straight so he could see everything.

He was particularly animated when they took him into the monkey house where there was a new exhibit of mandrills. The ferocious-looking baboons with the bright-blue-and-scarlet marked faces thrilled him, as did the African dancers that performed for the kickoff of the addition to the collection.

“Can you take him out of the stroller?” Devon asked then. “I’d like the two of you in a shot. It’ll tell me if I want people in the pictures or only the animals.”

“I didn’t know I was signing on for surrogate model today,” Keely said.

Devon grinned at her as if she’d found him out. “There’ll be dinner in it for you as payment,” he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows that made dinner sound like something deliciously wicked.

Keely couldn’t help laughing. Or obliging him.

And that was how the remainder of the day and early evening went. They meandered through the zoo, and Harley liked just about every animal he saw. Devon made the entire excursion even more enjoyable for Keely with his teasing and flirting and irresistible charm as he took pictures of the exhibits and of Keely and Harley, too.

Afterward, good to his word, he insisted on buying them all dinner at a kid-friendly restaurant where Harley was put into a high chair at the end of their booth.

Devon was curious about the baby’s eating habits, but when Keely asked if he’d like to try feeding Harley himself, he shied away.

It was nearly nine o’clock by the time they returned to Keely’s house. Devon parked at the curb, turned off the SUV’s engine and faced Keely. “Would it be all right if I came in and watched you put him to bed? Just in case I end up ever needing to do that?”

After all day and evening of maintaining his distance from the baby, Keely was surprised by the request. She didn’t have to give the idea much consideration, though. The alternative was saying good-night to him right then and there. And despite the fact that she knew that was probably for the best, it didn’t thrill her.

“Sure,” she agreed. “You can even do the bedtime routine, if you want.”

“I think I’ll stick with being the observer for now.”

“More just watching, huh?” she said, goading him slightly.

He smiled a one-sided smile. “But the view is so nice,” he said, not even pretending he was talking about Harley.

This secretly pleased Keely, who hid it by saying an efficient, “Well, come on, then, it’s already late for him.”

Harley always enjoyed his bath and tonight was no exception. He had several tub toys Keely put in with him and he liked to slap at them to make them bob in the water.

Devon seemed to get a kick out of that from where he sat on the end of the claw-footed tub, but it still didn’t inspire him to participate.

He also rejected Keely’s offer to let him dry Harley off and dress him afterwards, but as she put Harley into his crib with his bottle Devon did reach a long, thick finger down to the baby, letting Harley latch on to it as Devon said a quiet and sweet, “Sleep tight, big guy.”

Getting the baby to bed for the night had taken about an hour but not even the additional time had helped Keely reach the point where she was ready to see Devon go. So, as they left Harley’s room, she said, “I make a mean cup of hot chocolate that tastes pretty good on these chilly fall nights. If you’re interested.”

“Hot chocolate, huh?” he said as if that amused him. “Clean-cut, all-American hot chocolate.”

“There’s wine or beer or coffee if you’d rather,” she offered, confused.

But he said, “No, hot chocolate sounds good.”

He followed her down the stairs as she led the way into the kitchen at the rear of the house. She hoped the bright white room that she and Hillary had decorated with touches of apple red and navy blue would keep any sense of intimacy to a minimum. A simple, friendly cup of hot chocolate at the pedestaled kitchen table—that’s all this was and that’s all she was determined he would think it was.

“Your sister’s not around tonight?” Devon asked as she heated milk in the microwave and took two mugs from the rack under the oak cupboards.

“She’s with her fiancé, helping him pack to move in with us.”

“He’s taking Clarissa’s place?”

“Sort of. I mean, he’ll be the third contributor to the house payment, but mainly he’s moving in because he and Hill are getting married in less than two weeks.”

“One of my brothers is getting married, too. This Saturday.”

But it wasn’t his family Keely was thinking about. She was stuck on his question about her sister. “Were you…interested…in Hillary?” she heard herself ask before she’d judged the question, hating that she couldn’t help wondering if the whole coming-in-to-watch-Harley’s-bath tonight might have been so he could meet up with Hillary again.

“I was just curious about whether we were alone or not,” Devon assured her without having to think about it, leaving Keely’s concerns allayed and her mind chastising her for even that moment of jealousy.

She had their mugs of hot chocolate ready by then and brought them to the table where she set one in front of Devon and took her own with her to the cane-backed chair nearest to him. She reminded herself that this was only a friendly ending to the day and nothing more, but even so—and even staying in the kitchen—there was something cozy about it all. Not to mention that sitting there alone with him was awfully nice.

“So how did you become a wildlife photographer?” she asked after their initial sips of cocoa.

“I just fell into it, to tell you the truth,” he answered. “Taking one art class was a requirement in high school and at the time I thought art was only for sissies. I figured photography was slightly more macho than drawing or painting or making jewelry.”

It seemed as if every fiber of her being was aware of him as a man and since she was wrestling with the potent effects of his pure masculinity it almost made Keely laugh to think of him ever having worried about appearing to be a sissy.

“And you discovered you liked to take pictures of animals?” she asked to urge him on.

“Not animals at first. I discovered I liked the view of the world through a camera lens and ended up the school photographer. When I wasn’t playing football or baseball or running track I was taking the action shots for the yearbook and the newspaper—”

“Which, I assume, also meant you got to witness things like cheerleader practice,” Keely guessed.

He grinned like a mischievous boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Oh, yeah,” he confirmed with enough lascivious emphasis to let her know that had most definitely been an ulterior motive.

Then he continued to answer her initial question about how he’d become a wildlife photographer. “I kept at it through college, studied it as an art more seriously and by the time I was ready to graduate I’d realized it might be a way to see the world. So I pounded the pavement with my portfolio until I managed to get myself hired on as the assistant to a staff photographer at a small magazine. I worked my way up to staff photographer myself, moved on to a bigger magazine, and on an assignment to Africa that I’d had to do some fast talking to get, I discovered that I had a particular knack for taking wildlife pictures. I narrowed my focus—not literally, but figuratively—risked the regular paycheck to freelance, and here I am.”

Here he was all right, Keely thought, wishing she weren’t enjoying looking at that handsome face quite as much as she was.

“What about you?” he asked then. “How did you become a people finder, of all things?”

“I know. It’s kind of weird,” Keely said, liking that he was showing an interest in her rather than merely talking about himself. “Hillary started out as a cop—”

“Your sister is the other part of that we you referred to when you told me about your business?”

So he’d been listening closely enough to recall details. She appreciated that, too.

“Right,” she confirmed. “Anyway, Hillary was a cop and I went from college into designing computer software. But Hill got sick of the politics and I got bored and burned out right about the time some family stuff came up. We both wanted out of what we were doing and needed to stay at home. So we hit on the idea of Where Are They Now? I had the computer know-how, Hill knew the ins and outs of investigation, and we could do it wherever we chose.”

“And you’ve done pretty well?” Devon asked.

“Well enough to keep at it.”

Keely had barely touched her hot chocolate because she’d been too engrossed in Devon. But his was gone.

“Want another cup?” she asked with a nod toward his mug.

“It was great but I should probably get going,” he said, standing and taking his cup to the sink.