The Baby Track (22 page)

She mentally ran down a list of possibilities, eliminating all friends, because this was a predicament that one should inflict only on family. Moving so often had strengthened her concept that friends were a temporary luxury, while family was permanently stuck with you no matter what.

Her parents were far away in southern Florida, and her stepbrothers, career army officers, were currently stationed overseas with their families. If they had to stay on the run, she and Sarah might eventually land on their doorsteps, but all were out for the immediate present. Stepsister Cathy lived on the West Coast with her family, so the same applied to her.

That left her sister Ashlinn, in New York City, and her stepsister Michelle, in Harrisburg. Both were within driving distance, both lived alone in their o\ln apartments.

But there was really no decision to make between those two. If she were to arrive at cool, sophisticated Ashlinn’s door with a baby and a story about a faux marriage, amnesia, and a long-lost father and son reunion, Ashlinn would probably try to have her committed to the nearest mental institution.

Courtney headed for Harrisburg. Ashlinn might be her full-blooded sister, but she’d always been closer to sweet, understanding Michelle.

Sarah awakened as they approached the city limits and began to fret. By the time Courtney pulled the car into the parking lot adjacent to Michelle’s apartment building, the baby was squalling with infant fury.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Courtney soothed, carrying Sarah and the weighty diaper bag up the two flights of stairs to Michelle’s apartment. The building had an elevator, but Courtney wasn’t about to waste a second waiting for it. “Just one more minute till your dinner, Cookie.”

Connor’s nickname for the baby came naturally to her lips and brought a swift rush of tears. Standing in the hallway of the building, holding the wailing infant, Courtney had never felt so lost and alone. She missed Connor with an intensity that bordered on actual physical pain.

She pressed the doorbell, once, twice, three times, without response, then began to think of making alternate plans if Michelle was out for the evening. Just as she punched the bell one final time, the door swung open.

“Michelle, thank God you’re here!” Courtney cried, pushing her way inside. And then she gasped.

Michelle hadn’t opened the door, a man had. He stood staring at her and the crying baby with a look of incredulity, similar to the one Courtney was giving him.

“Who are you?” Courtney was too disconcerted by the sight of the stranger to manage a polite social greeting. Her dark eyes swept critically over the man, whose shirt was unbuttoned and untucked from the waistband of his trousers, who was barefoot, and who was so stunningly good-looking that she was instantly wary of him.

“I’m Steve Saraceni, a friend of Michelle’s.” The handsome stranger smiled, doubling, tripling, his attraction.

“And I know who you are. You’re Courtney, Michelle’s sister. I’ve seen your picture around here.”

So he was friendly and charming as well as drop-dead gorgeous? Courtney frowned. “Where’s Michelle?” she demanded.

“She’ll join us in a moment,” Steve Saraceni said smoothly. “Here, let me take your bag.” He quickly divested her of the heavy diaper bag, enabling Courtney to shift the baby to a more comfortable position. But Sarah continued to howl.

“She’s hungry and needs to be changed,” said Courtney, laying the baby down on a section of the U-shaped sofa.

“How old is she? A couple weeks?” Steve asked affably, watching her tend to the baby. “My sister has a four-month-old son,” he added. “I remember his newborn days quite well.”

“Courtney!” Michelle rushed into the room, her hair tousled, her pink silk blouse and fashionable pleated slacks so obviously swiftly thrown on, that Courtney winced. Her timing was the worst! Her arrival had clearly interrupted— something.

“Michelle, I’m sorry for barging in like this—”

“A baby?” Michelle interrupted. Her wide china blue eyes swept over Sarah with definite dismay. “Courtney, did you get that baby for Mark and Marianne from the crooked lawyer you told me about? Oh, this is just unbelievable! You’ve been away and out of touch. Of course, you couldn’t have heard the news.’ ’

“What news?” asked Courtney. She was stalling for time, not quite ready to tell Michelle that Sarah was completely hers. She cuddled the baby in her arms, giving her a fresh bottle of infant formula.

“The news about Mark and Marianne and the children they’ve adopted,” explained Michelle, sitting down on the sofa. “They received a call from the adoption agency last week, just after you left the city.”

Though she was talking to Courtney, Michelle’s eyes remained riveted on Steve Saraceni, who was casually straightening and readjusting his clothing. “Three children—a four-year-old girl and two little boys, ages three and one, brothers and sister, were orphaned in a car accident last month. The agency wanted to place the children together, and Mark and Marianne immediately said they’d take all three. They’re picking them up the day after tomorrow.” Courtney gasped with surprised pleasure. “So they have their family at last! I know they’ll make wonderful parents for those poor little kids, Michelle.” She smiled tremulously. “I—I’m so happy for them I could cry.”

And then she did begin to cry, rocking Sarah in her arms as the tears streamed down her cheeks. What might have begun as a joyfully tearful response to the good news swiftly changed into tears of longing and grief for her own loss. Michelle tried to comfort her, alternating soothing platitudes with tactful questions pertaining to Sarah.

Steve Saraceni disappeared from the room, returning a short time later, fully dressed and impeccably groomed. “Michelle, I can see that you have your hands full here,” he said in that silky-soft tone of his. “Your sister needs you, so I’ll just say goodbye and—”

“No, wait! Please don’t go, Steve!” Michelle jumped to her feet.

Her desperation, so palpable, so totally undisguised, jarred Courtney from the depths of her own misery. Her heart went out to her stepsister, whose eyes were shining with love for this man whose eagerness to go was a unequi-vocable as Michelle’s desire to have him stay.

Oh, Michelle, when it’s time to leave, all you can do is let go,
Courtney urged silently, bleakly. She’d learned that bitterly hard lesson once again this afternoon.

“None of us has had dinner yet,” Michelle continued breathlessly. “I have a whole pan of chicken enchiladas in the freezer. I can—”

The sudden insistent sound of the doorbell interrupted her.

“I’ll answer it,” Steve said quickly.

Courtney half expected him to bolt out the door the moment he opened it. But he didn’t, for the doorway was blocked by two men, the older in a navy pinstripe suit, the younger in jeans and a green cotton sweater.

Courtney smothered a cry and began to tremble. No, it couldn’t be! The color drained from her face. She was so sure she and Sarah could remain safely undetected in Michelle’s apartment.

Steve Saraceni’s face lit with a beautific smile. “Why, you’re Richard Tremaine!” he exclaimed, addressing the older man. “I recognize you from your pictures on the financial pages,” he added reverently, thrusting out his hand to shake. “I’m Steve Saraceni. Terribly pleased to meet you.” He turned to face Michelle, his handsome face aglow with admiration. “Darling, I didn’t know you knew Richard Tremaine.”

Michelle stared from Steve to Courtney to the two men standing in the doorway. “I don’t,” she said bewilderedly.

Connor stepped forward, into the apartment. His eyes locked with Courtney’s, and she swiftly looked away, gazing fixedly at Sarah in her arms.

“Uh, Richard, why don’t you take Michelle and—Steve here out to dinner while Courtney and I talk,” Connor said, his voice low and taut with a steely control that made Courtney shiver. Acting instinctively from a sense of sheer self-preservation, she stood up and began to slowly inch her way out of the living room.

“Good idea!” Richard Tremaine seconded heartily. “Michelle, Steve, I’m sure you two can recommend a good restaurant.”

“Yes, sir, I certainly can.” Steve Saraceni was beaming. “Name your choice of cuisine and I’ll name the best place for it. Michelle, come, sweet.” He extended his hand, and she hesitated for just a moment before taking it.

“What brings you to our fair city, Mr. Tremaine?” Steve asked, turning the full force of his charming smile back to Richard Tremaine. “I hope you are enjoying your—”

The three left the apartment, Saraceni keeping up a steady stream of conversation.

Connor and Courtney were left alone. She continued her subtle progression out of the room, too unnerved by his presence to do anything else.

“Who is that silver-tongued smooth operator sucking up to my father?” Connor asked, moving slowly, purposefully, toward her.

“I—I just met him here a short while ago.” Even to herself, Courtney’s voice sounded high and unnatural. “I think he’s involved with Michelle.”

“Michelle may be involved with him, but he is involved only with himself,” Connor observed. “I know his type so well I can make an on-the-spot judgment call.”

“How did you know I was here?” Courtney whispered, her heart in her throat.

“Because I used to be his type.” Connor ignored her question and answered an entirely different one. “And sure, it’s cool, it’s fun. You’re completely free and answer to no one. You avoid obligations and responsibilities. Your money and your time is all your own. And then you find yourself at a certain age, at a certain time, when it all begins to pale. You realize that you have no friends you can really talk to or depend on, that there is no woman you can trust and feel close to. Suddenly not even sex has any real pleasure or meaning. It’s become just an exercise, a way to work out and work off tension.”

“Connor,” Courtney cut in nervously.

“Heard enough of my soul-searching soliloquy, huh?” He smiled without mirth.

“You remember!” she exclaimed. Suddenly the pieces fell into place. Some of them, anyway. “You must have remembered me mentioning Michelle to track me here!”

“Yes.” He nodded. She could read nothing in his enigmatic expression. “I remember everything, Gypsy.” Courtney felt hot, then cold. She didn’t understand and she didn’t dare to hope. “When?” she asked shakily.

“Last night. It happened in stages. First it occurred to me that you couldn’t have stayed a virgin if we’d been married for the past five years.”

She winced, and a slow hot blush turned her cheeks crimson.

“But it wasn’t until we made love again, after the baby’s four-thirty feeding, that it all came back to me. Everything. The adoption story, our marriage ruse to fool Wilson. The only gap in my memory is the time following the collision until I awakened in the hospital.”

“So when we were on our walk this morning and when you met your father.. .during our picnic.. .you remembered everything?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried. “I—”

“I tried,” he cut in. “Well, sort of,” he modified when she gave him a look of pure disbelief. “I told you not to worry and that everything was going to be all right. I said you were mine and I’d never let you go.”

“You’d been saying those things before your memory returned,” Courtney reminded him. “How was I to know—”

“The truth is, I wasn’t quite sure how to tell you or how you would take the news,” he interrupted her again, his lips curving into a tight, sardonic smile. “Maybe I was worried that you would get scared and take off.”

They were in Michelle’s bedroom now. Courtney was shaking so much, she could hardly stand. She stared at the rumpled bed and her blush deepened. Oh, she had interrupted something here, all right. And then Burton, Michelle’s Siamese cat, emerged from under the bed, greeted them with a meow and hopped onto the pillows. Courtney stared at the cat, who gazed inscrutably back at her.

“Let’s go back into the other room,” Connor suggested dryly. “There’s too much in this one competing for your attention.” He reached for Sarah. “Here, let me take her.” Courtney’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t give her up, Connor,” she whispered.

He gave her a measuring glance, then took the baby from her arms and carried her into the living room. Courtney followed him, watching as he removed a blanket from the canvas bag and spread it over a sofa cushion. He carefully laid Sarah down on it, tucking a smaller flannel blanket around her.

Then he straightened and turned to face Courtney. “Why did you leave me? No, let me amend that to ‘Why did you run out on me?’ Because that’s exactly what you did, Courtney.”

“I had to!” She gulped back a sob. “What was between us wasn’t real, and once your father called your mother, it would’ve been all over, anyway.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” His eyes glittered, his tone was fierce. “I told you I loved you, you said you loved me, too. It doesn’t get any more real than that.”

“But you said it under false pretenses! You thought we were married! ”

His face softened. “And you thought I wouldn’t want you if I remembered that we weren’t?” He moved closer and slid his fingers into the dark silkness of her hair. He lowered his voice. “So the little Gypsy packed up and moved on.”

“I had to,” she repeated, blinking back the emotional tears that once again welled in her eyes. Her hand reached up and covered his. “Before the accident, the one thing you didn’t want was to be married. You insisted that I had to give the baby back to Nollier, and you accused me of trying to trap you—”

“That was before I had some sense knocked into me.” He grinned suddenly. “Literally.”

“Don’t make jokes about it!” Courtney shuddered. “It was awful seeing you lying unconscious in the hospital.”

“Which brings us to Dr. Ammon’s esoteric concept of disassociative amnesia.” Connor used his other arm to haul her against him. “The internal conflict I was waging was over you, baby. You were everything I wanted, everything I needed—”

“Everything you’d spent your adult life avoiding,” she finished, staring up at him with enormous dark velvet eyes.