Bringing up Baby
Autorzy
Charlotte Douglas
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18,8K
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14
Chapter One
A baby’s tiny ears are attuned to the sound of his mother’s voice. When your baby cries, murmur softly in his ear. He will cease his wailing to hear you.
Amanda Donovan, Bringing Up Baby
The doorbell rang for the third time. Devon Clarke ignored it, raked her fingers through her short hair and pressed Enter on her computer keyboard. The modem hummed as her fifth-anniversary column whizzed across the phone lines to the syndicate.
Satisfied, she leaned back in her desk chair. No more deadline for a week. Downstairs, the doorbell chimed again with a longer, more insistent tone.
“I hear you,” she muttered. “Don’t get your knickers in a knot.” She slipped one foot into a sandal and groped with her toes for its mate. At the fifth irritating clamor of the bell, she abandoned her search for the other shoe, kicked off the first and trotted barefoot down the stairs. “Coming!”
The Florida sun beamed through the beveled glass panes of the front doors, silhouetting a man’s rigid posture. Devon dodged sawhorses in the foyer and opened the door.
“Miss Clarke?” An elderly man with a stern expression presented his business card, “I’m Fenton J. Farnsworth. May I have a few moments of your time?”
The gray-haired elegance of the man made her conscious of her faded T-shirt, paint-splattered shorts and tousled hair. She straightened her shoulders and accepted his gold-embossed card, which identified him as an attorney from Kansas City. His expensive suit and the limousine at the curb suggested his competence at jurisprudence.
“Look” she opened the door wide enough to display the chaos of construction in the foyer “—I’m very busy, so I’ll have to pass on whatever you’re selling or collecting for.”
Farnsworth’s starchy demeanor grew more stiff. “I assure you, I am neither selling nor soliciting. I have come in my capacity as an officer of the court to present you with a bequest.”
Curiosity overrode her impatience. “From whom? I don’t know anyone in Kansas City.”
“But people in Kansas City, indeed all over the country, know you, Miss Clarke—or should I say, Mrs. Donovan?”
His disclosure of her secret identity galvanized her into action. She grabbed Farnsworth by his elbow, dragged him into the house and slammed the door behind him. In the shadows of the hallway, she jammed her fists on her hips. “Donovan’s supposed to be a secret. How did you find out?”
His shrug rumpled the wool of his tailor-made jacket. “There’s hardly anything I can’t uncover, given enough time and resources. And my clients’ resources are considerable. I suggest we sit down. You’re looking a bit pale.”
Devon squelched the panic that had bubbled over when he addressed her by her secret name and preceded him into the living room, zigzagging around paint cans and ladders. After tugging a dust-laden drop cloth from the sofa, she offered him a seat, and Farnsworth perched stiffly on the cushion’s edge.
She sank into a chair opposite him, not bothering to remove the canvas tarp that covered it, eyed the dapper man warily and tried not to think of blackmail. She’d written under the pseudonym, Amanda Donovan, for over five years, and no one but Leona Wiggins, her agent, and her former editor, Jake Blalock, knew the real identity of the baby column’s creator. “What do you want?”
He tilted back his head and chuckled. “Put yourself at ease, Miss Clarke. I don’t want anything. I’ve come to give you something.”
“Give me what?”
“Perhaps I’d better start at the beginning.” He adjusted the gold links in his French cuffs and cleared his throat. “My clients, Chad and Gloria Phillips, owned one of the largest farm equipment corporations in the Midwest. They were two of your greatest fans. They read your column, Bringing Up Baby, religiously every week.”
She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “You’ve come all the way to Florida from Kansas City because your clients are fans of my column?”
He nodded. “Partly. Chad and Gloria wanted children more than anything in the world, and you were a source of inspiration and hope to them. After several frustratingly barren years, their daughter was finally born. And they named her Amanda, after you.”
A flush of pleasure crept up her face. “I’m honored.”
“Gloria said your book Easy Meals for the Busy Mother was a lifesaver.” He smiled and smoothed his silver hair with his palm. “Your love and knowledge of children added so much to their lives, they decided to include you in their wills.”
Guilt permeated her pleasure. She knew nothing about babies, never had. But she couldn’t admit that to him—or anyone—because her livelihood was built on the lie. If the facts were known, her whole life, including the marvelous old Victorian house her work enabled her to make payments on, would come crashing down around her ears.
Although the bequest piqued her curiosity, she salved her guilty conscience through denial. “That was very generous of your clients, but I couldn’t accept anything from them.”
“But you must.” Farnsworth leaned toward her with a look that must have struck fear in the hearts of his courtroom opponents. “Everything’s been taken care of, all the necessary papers have been filed—here are your copies—and she’ll arrive in just a few hours.”
Devon accepted the official-looking document and scanned its fine, compact print, but the legalese made no sense. Good Lord, what had they left her, a puppy? Or worse, some favorite farm animal? “Who—or what—is she?”
“Your namesake, Amanda Phillips. She’s six months old.”
“A baby! You’re giving me a baby?”
He nodded.
“Not on your life, buster! You can’t just waltz in here and hand me a baby, as if it was a free trip to Vegas or a set of luggage.” She slumped back in her chair, stunned. “Give away a child? No way.”
“Believe me, my clients wouldn’t do this voluntarily. Unfortunately, they were killed in a tragic accident. Their car ran into a drainage ditch during a violent thunderstorm. They both drowned.”
At a loss for words, she stared at him. The situation left her numb with surprise, and she resisted the temptation to pinch herself, to prove the man’s offer was all a crazy dream fabricated by her subconscious to punish her for deceiving her reading public.
“Fortunately,” he added, “the baby was at home with a sitter at the time.”
“But why choose me?” she muttered, more to herself and fate than to Farnsworth.
“Right before Amanda’s birth, Chad and Gloria named you her guardian, knowing you’d give their daughter love and expert care should anything happen to them.”
The attorney’s foolishness had progressed far enough. She shoved the papers back at him. “Count me out. A child should be raised by her own flesh and blood.”
“But my clients insisted—”
“Doesn’t she have grandparents?”
“Deceased.”
“Aunts?”
His stoic expression never wavered. He shook his head.
Desperation surged within her. “Uncles?”
“Phillips has a half brother, Ernest Potts, but the man is unprincipled. Chad and Gloria were adamant that the child be kept from him at all costs.” Farnsworth pressed the guardianship papers back into her hands. “These documents are filed with the court. Returning them to me does not negate them.”
Devon struggled to think. Maybe in this instance, honesty was her best policy. “Mr. Farnsworth, what I’m about to tell you is privileged information, not to be divulged to anyone.”
“I understand.”
“You don’t want to leave Amanda Phillips with me. I’m a fraud who knows nothing about babies.” Her voice squeaked like Butterfly McQueen’s in Gone with the Wind. She swallowed hard and lowered her tone. “I was an only child, orphaned at age three and raised by a maiden great-aunt. My only experience with babies comes from reading my great-grandmother’s journals, passed on by Aunt Bessie when she died. They’re the source for all my writing.”
He shrugged. “I fail to see a problem.”
“Of course there’s a problem!” She sprang to her feet and winced when her bare foot struck an errant nail. Waving her arms, she hobbled around the cluttered room. “Tons of problems! I don’t know one end of a baby from another. I’m a single woman, scratching out a living for myself. And this place is full of dust, dirt and debris, no place for a child.”
The attorney’s calm exterior remained unruffled. “You’re overreacting, Miss Clarke. All parents are beginners with their first child. It’s called on-the-job training. This construction won’t last forever, and Amanda’s trust fund will pay for anything she needs—or desires.”
“What about love? I don’t love this baby, I don’t know this baby, I don’t want this baby. She needs parents who love her.” A solution hit her, and she turned to face him. “Put her up for adoption.”
“That would be contrary to my clients’ wishes.”
“What about my wishes?” Devon glared at him. “If I’m the child’s legal guardian, I’ll put her up for adoption myself, for her own good.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” His toneless voice stopped her cold.
“Why not?”
“It would be most unfortunate if your millions of fans discover their favorite columnist has given up her own child, that she was, to use your words, a fraud.’’
“That’s blackmail!”
“No, merely insuring that my clients’ wishes for their daughter are carried out as they intended. The nurse will deliver Amanda later today, and her furniture should arrive about the same time.”
“But—”
“And this—” he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and thrust it into her hands “—is the first monthly payment from Amanda’s trust, made out to you as her guardian.”
Devon’s knees buckled at the amount, and she sank onto the nearest chair. “That’s more than I make in six months.”
“Use it for the child and for her environment.” He glanced around the room and brushed invisible dust from his sleeve. “As long as Amanda is healthy and happy, your secret, Mrs. Donovan, is safe with me.”
Devon didn’t hear him leave. She sat motionless, gripping the check and guardianship papers, tangible reminders his visit hadn’t been a bad dream. The check, made out to her, burned in her hand. Only a saint wouldn’t feel tempted by that much money. She could pay off her house with a few more checks that size, or start a pension fund, or—she shook her head, shoving temptation away.
She wouldn’t touch the baby’s trust fund. It wouldn’t be right—even though the extra money would come in handy each month while she waited for her check to arrive from the syndicate that distributed her columns to newspapers all over the country. No, the kid didn’t belong to her and neither did the money.
She removed a tarp that covered a Windsor desk, shoved the check and papers into a cubbyhole and dropped the cloth back over the desk. Out of sight, out of mind.
The whine of a power saw across the hall dragged her from her reverie. Mr. O’Reilly had let himself in and begun work, although much later than usual. She picked her way through the maze of paint cans and debris to the kitchen door. She’d put on a pot of coffee and ask the old man for advice.
Mike O’Reilly had worked for her for the past six months, remodeling the kitchen and her upstairs bedroom first, so she could move in while he completed the renovations. She’d never had a father figure in her life, and she’d grown fond of the white-haired carpenter with his wisdom, wit and twinkling blue eyes. With Aunt Bessie gone, he was the closest thing to family she had.
The familiar atmosphere of the kitchen soothed her nerves as she scooped coffee into the basket of the coffeemaker. She’d designed the room herself with its walls and counters the color of pale sunshine, gleaming oak cabinets and lemon yellow curtains sprigged with wildflowers. She arranged homemade macadamia-nut cookies on a plate and took down two large ceramic mugs from the rack over the stove.
“Mr. O’Reilly,” she called up the hallway toward the sounds of hammering in the dining room. “Coffee’s ready.”
She filled the mugs with the steaming brew and carried them toward the table in the dining alcove.
The sight of a tall, dark stranger in the hall doorway startled her, and she halted abruptly, sloshing hot coffee over the front of her T-shirt. “Who are you?”
The stranger hooked his thumbs in a tool belt, slung low on narrow hips over jeans that fitted like contact paper. His movement rippled the muscles of his tanned arms, exposed by the rolled sleeves of a faded denim shirt. “You didn’t burn yourself, did you?”
Her skin smarted where the coffee had spilled, but her fright was greater than her injury. Huge and powerful, the man towered in the doorway. She backed toward the kitchen door. “What are you doing in my house?”
He pushed shaggy nutmeg hair off his broad forehead and studied her with eyes the color of summer thunderheads. “I’m O’Reilly.”
“The hell you are!” She plunked the mugs on the table and inched closer to the exit. “O’Reilly’s a white-haired old man with a big grin and periwinkle blue eyes. You’re—”
“I’m what?” He fixed his generous mouth into an unyielding line above a mesmerizing cleft in his chin.
“You’re—different.”
An understatement if she’d ever heard one. Where O’Reilly had been kindly and slight of build, the man in the doorway radiated a strength capable of crushing her with one sweep of his muscled arm. The set of his chiseled jaw, finely sculpted nose and powerful shoulders and chest exuded a magnetism that almost made her forget the man was a trespasser.
“I’m Colin O’Reilly, Mike’s son.” An engaging grin cocked the corner of his mouth as he surveyed the front of her T-shirt, soaked with coffee and molded to her breasts.
She squirmed under his scrutiny, grasped the doorknob behind her and twisted, but the door was locked. She struggled with the dead bolt. “You don’t look anything like Mike. I’ll need identification.”
With a shrug of his broad shoulders, he tugged his wallet from a back pocket, extracted a card and sauntered forward. “My driver’s license.”
She overcame the compelling urge to move toward him and held her ground. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer, but whether from fear or fascination, she couldn’t tell, “Don’t come any closer. Leave it on the table and back away.”
When he slid the laminated card across the table’s polished surface before stepping back into the hall doorway, her thudding heart eased its clamor. But to be safe, she unlatched the lock as she reached toward the table with her other hand. When the same intense eyes stared back at her from the photo ID of Colin O’Reilly, she experienced both relief and embarrassment.
He tucked the card back into his wallet and slid it into the pocket of his jeans. “Sorry if I startled you.”
She flushed, feeling foolish. “And I’m sorry if I overreacted. You caught me by surprise.”
“Dad gave me the key and told me not to disturb your writing.” He strode forward and held out his hand. “I’d like some of that coffee, if there’s any left.”
She grasped his extended hand, and the firmness of his grip set her arm tingling. “I’m Devon Clarke. Where’s Mike?”
“In the hospital.”
“Hospital!” Concern for Mike swept away the last of her fear. “Why?”
“He complained of chest pains last night at home. I took him in for a series of tests. We don’t have the results, but I’m afraid it’s his heart.” Colin unfastened his tool belt and deposited it in the dusty hall before entering the dining alcove and sitting at the round oak table.
“Poor Mike.” She refilled the mugs and slid into a chair across from him. In the open plan kitcbendining-family room, Colin seemed to fill the space, consuming all the oxygen until she struggled for breath.
Get a grip, she warned herself. Good-looking as Colin was, he was only a man, for Pete’s sake. And Aunt Bessie had warned her how good-looking men could turn a girl’s head and make her take leave of her senses. She shifted her gaze to the azalea bushes, wilting in the September heat outside her kitchen window, and turned her thoughts to Mike.
“Is there anything I can do for your father?”
“Thanks, but not for now. In a few days, when he’s feeling better, he might enjoy some company.” He bit into a cookie and lifted his eyebrows in approval. “And some cookies.”
His megawatt smile almost blew her off her chair and derailed her train of thought. She fumbled for conversation to fill the uncomfortable void. “Do you live in the area?”
“Moved back last week.”
“Back?”
“’From Tallahassee. I closed my office there. I was planning to open one here right away, but with Dad in the hospital—” he shrugged his broad shoulders “—the office will have to wait a while.”
She studied his strong square hands as he rolled the coffee mug between his palms. His well-manicured nails and uncallused fingers revealed hands unmarked by manual labor. “Office? For a carpenter?”
He smiled again, sending her blood singing. “I’m an architect—but a carpenter, too. Dad put a hammer and saw in my hands as soon as I was old enough to walk. I suppose you’re concerned about your house?”
Baby Amanda would be arriving in a few hours, and she had no idea what to do with her. Her body had turned on her, reacting to the man across from her like a teenager caught in a hormonal tsunami. A hiatus in her remodeling plans was the least of her worries. “No, not really—”
“You’re not canceling the work?”
“It can wait until Mike’s better.”
A stillness descended on him, and he stared out the bay window at the back lawn. The only sounds in the room were the tick of an old-fashioned day clock and the hiss of her own breathing.
When he turned to face her, pain clouded his eyes. “Dad’s working days may be over. If his ticker’s bad, he’ll have to take life easy.”
“I’m sorry. That will be hard for him.”
Colin nodded. “He’s conscientious and proud. And he’s worried about you—asked me to finish this job for him.”
The thought of Colin O’Reilly in her house for the next several months threw her further into panic. Would she grow accustomed to him or would he continue to unsettle her, distracting her from her work? Baby Amanda would be distraction enough.
“I don’t know, Mr. O’Reilly—”
“Colin.”
She was drowning in the liquid steel of his eyes. Her thoughts whirled; her mind wouldn’t focus. “You see, I’m expecting a baby.”
His gaze flickered to her flat stomach. “Congratulations.”
“But I’m getting rid of it.”
His jaw hardened. “I see.”
“No, it’s not what you—” The doorbell chimed. “Good Lord, she’s here already.”
“Heaven save me from crazy women,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.
She leaped up, knocked over the ladder-back chair, scurried up the hall and flung open the front door.
A matronly woman stood on the front porch with an infant car seat in her arms. “Mrs. Donovan, here’s your baby, all safe and sound.”
Big brown eyes stared at her from beneath the turned-up brim of a pink hat. Chubby arms and legs protruded from a pink sunsuit and flailed the air. The matron shoved the carrier into Devon’s arms, and she clutched it awkwardly, terrified of dropping the wiggling bundle. Her initial admiration of the cuddly child hardened into a knot of unadulterated panic deep in her gut.
“Her diapers and formula are here.” The woman plunked a large bag at Devon’s feet. “The van will arrive shortly with the rest of her things.”
A thousand questions surged through Devon’s head. “But when do I feed her? How—”
The woman started down the steps and called over her shoulder, “My instructions were to deliver the child. The rest is up to you.”
“Wait—”
But the woman continued to her car, climbed in and sped away, leaving Devon standing on the porch with Amanda wriggling in the carrier in her arms. She headed back into the house and bumped into Colin in the front hallway.
He nodded toward the child. “That was fast work.”
“You have no idea,” Devon said, scowling at him.
When he leaned over the child, his face softened. “She’s a sweetheart.”
Devon studied the plump, dimpled face. Amanda stared back at her with round eyes, screwed her tiny features into a scowl, opened her toothless mouth and screamed in a frantic, high-pitched howl.
Remembering Gramma Donovan’s advice in the column she’d just finished, Devon lowered her lips to the baby’s ear and crooned, “It’s all right, kiddo, Devon will take care of you.”
Small fists grabbed her hair and yanked, bringing tears to her eyes. The more Devon murmured, the harder Amanda pulled on her hair and the louder the baby’s howls crescendoed, echoing across the empty rooms. Through the captured strands of hair pulled taut across her eyes, she spotted Colin, who had followed her down the hall.
“Don’t just stand there,” she cried. “Make her turn me loose.”
Colin bit back a laugh at the panic on Devon’s face and gently pried the tiny fingers from her hair. Devon Clarke was one surprise after another. When his father had described her as a single woman and a writer, Colin had pictured an unattractive spinster quite a bit older.
The sight of her lithe, trim body clad in shorts that revealed long, supple legs and a damp, clinging shirt that left nothing to his imagination had been a very pleasant shock. And her pixie face had almost defrosted the glacier Felicia had made of his heart.
Those pools of gold-flecked green filled with terror as she juggled the crying baby in her arms and dodged the waving fists that continued to grab for her hair.
“Here,” he said, “give her to me.”
Without hesitation, Devon thrust the baby at him. “Take her into the kitchen, out of this dust.”
He removed the child from its carrier, and she snuggled into the crook of his arm, hiccupped and grew quiet, assessing him with smiling eyes. The tug on his heartstrings brought moisture to his eyes, and he cursed Felicia again for her change of heart, her refusal to consider having children. For years he’d longed for a child of his own to fit as naturally in his arms as this small stranger did.
Devon tucked the car seat under one arm, hefted the large bag over her shoulder and led the way back through the kitchen into the adjoining sitting area. She piled the baby’s belongings on the kitchen counter.
Colin settled into a bentwood chair by the fireplace and began to rock. The baby’s eyes drooped and fluttered before closing altogether.
Devon nestled into the corner of the sofa and curled her long legs beneath her. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make her stop crying.”
He couldn’t decide who was more appealing—the child in his arms or the woman who stared at him with wide eyes in a heart-shaped face. “You don’t have much experience with babies, do you?”
“Absolutely zip.”
He shifted Amanda’s weight and continued rocking. “Babies rely on nonverbal clues for communication. The tension in your body relayed your uneasiness. When babies are afraid, they cry to let you know it.”
Her eyes never left the baby’s face, and he could read a latent fascination through her apprehension.
“So when you took her,” Devon said, “she relaxed because you did. How do you know so much about babies? Do you have children of your own?”
He repressed the pain that pierced him at her question and shook his head. “I come from a big family with four younger brothers and sisters. Seemed like there was always a baby in the house.”
The rocking motion of the chair and the weight of the small, warm body eased some of the bitterness that had gripped him since his divorce. The homey atmosphere of the big kitchen, the child clutched against his heart and the beautiful woman across from him—this had been his dream, a dream Felicia had shattered with her selfishness.
“What am I going to do with her?” Devon asked.
“She’ll need feeding before long.” He slipped a finger beneath the elastic of her plastic pants. “And changing.”
Devon jumped to her bare feet and paced before the fireplace, running long, elegant fingers through her short curls. “That’s not what I meant. What am I going to do with her?”
“You raise her the best you can.” He couldn’t keep the impatience from his voice. Had all women become so liberated they’d turned their backs on motherhood? “She is yours, isn’t she?”
She stopped pacing and plopped onto the sofa with her legs stretched before her, her chin resting on her chest. “Legally, yes. Morally, I don’t know.”
“Miss Clarke—”
“Devon.”
“Devon, you’re talking in riddles. Is this baby yours or not?”
“According to Fenton J. Farnsworth, attorney-atlaw, her parents, now deceased, named me her guardian in their wills.”
“That settles it, then.” He squelched the urge to shake some sense into her very pretty head. “They must have thought highly of you to leave you their most precious possession.”
She leaned against the backrest and stared at the ceiling. “Her parents didn’t know me from Adam. We never met.”
“Then how—”
“I’m a writer. They read my weekly columns in the newspaper and liked my style.” When she turned toward him, worry clouded her eyes. “Now do you see my dilemma?”
He nodded, then realized the warmth spreading across his sleeve was more than the baby’s body temperature. “Are there any diapers in that bag?”
Devon unzipped the large carryall, found only cloth diapers and handed him one.
“Uh-uh.” He stood and offered her the child. “You have to learn sometime.”
The loud ring of the telephone saved her. “Next time, okay?”
She thrust the diaper into his hands, rushed to the wall phone above the kitchen desk and grabbed the receiver.
“Devon, I have terrific news.” The voice of Leona Wiggins, her agent in New York, vibrated in her ear. “I’ve just had a call from the producer of “The Sara Davis Show.’ Sara wants to do an interview with you for her Christmas special, the whole hour-long show.”
“You know I never do interviews.”
Leona sighed into the phone. “I’m afraid, cupcake, you don’t have a choice this time.”
“What do you mean, this time?”
“Your new contract with the syndicate.” Leona explained, “says you’ll do whatever interviews they request, and for the first time, they’ve insisted on this one.”
The beginnings of a headache blossomed behind Devon’s eyes. “And if I refuse?”
Leona’s sharp intake of breath hissed in her ear. “They’ll void your contract and sue you for everything you’re worth.”
“Which isn’t much,” Devon said with a sharp laugh. Her syndicate salary was her only income, and she barely managed to pay her bills. She couldn’t have afforded her house without Aunt Bessie’s bequest as the modest down payment.
“Besides,” Leona said, “I keep trying to tell you, the only way to survive in today’s market is to go multimedia. You’ve got to take the plunge sometime. Why not make it big on Sara’s show?”
Devon gulped. “But a whole hour. What will I talk about?”
“Babies and cooking, what else?” A long silence filled the other end of the line before Leona spoke again. “There is a slight hitch.”
“Don’t tell me I have to come to New York.”
Colin raised his head from diapering Amanda on the sofa and looked at her with interest. Diaper pins sprouted between his lips. She turned her back on his curiosity.
“No need to come here,” Leona said. “Sara will bring her show to Florida. I told her about your renovations. She wants to film next month at your house.”
“Next month! The house won’t be ready for six months, maybe more. My contractor’s in the hospital.”
“Don’t worry about the house. Sara wants to see the project in progress, but there is another problem.’
Devon’s stomach knotted. It had to be bad news, and between Mike’s incident, Amanda’s arrival and the syndicate contract, she’d had enough bad news to last a year. “What problem?”
“She wants the interview to include your husband and baby.”
“Are you crazy?” Devon sputtered softly into the phone, hoping Colin wouldn’t hear. “You know I don’t have a husband and baby. I made them up out of thin air for my column. What did you tell her?”
“What could I tell her without blowing your image? I told her yes. Your five-year refusal to make public appearances has everyone clamoring to know more about you, driving your asking price through the roof. Even if the syndicate hadn’t insisted, the money is too good to turn down.” She named a sixfigure sum that took Devon’s breath away.
Devon glanced back toward Colin, who had changed Amanda and now held her securely in one arm as he deftly popped the top on a can of formula, filled a bottle and settled back into the rocker to feed her. The baby’s tiny sucking noises sounded all the way across the room. The kitchen’s snug atmosphere, the big man cradling the child in his powerful arms and the desperation of her own situation gave rise to a brainstorm.
“I have an idea, Leona, but it will take time to work it out. I’ll get back to you.”
“I know you, Devon—”
“No, this time I promise—”
“You’ll turn on your answering machine and ignore my calls until Sara’s deadline passes. I’m catching the next flight to Tampa and bringing the contract with me. See you this evening.”
“Leona, wait—”
Dead air filled her ear, and her mind churned. Across the room, Amanda kneaded Colin’s big hand with her tiny fingers as he held her bottle.
The sight strengthened Devon’s resolve. If she had to endure the interview, at least it would be for a good cause. She’d use her proceeds to hire a lawyer, one who could free her from Farnsworth’s blackmail threats so she could put Amanda up for adoption. The kid deserved a home with a mother and father who loved her, not someone too terrified to touch her, not a scatterbrained, single writer who often forgot to feed herself, much less a baby. But first she’d need Colin’s help.
She crossed the room and stood before him. Her idea was risky, but worth a try. Her heart thundered in her chest, and her palms were slick with perspiration.
He raised his head, shifting his attention from the child to her. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help hearing. Is there a problem?”
“That depends on you.”
“Me?” His expression turned wary.
“Are you married?”
A frown pulled down the corners of his mouth. “Not anymore.”
Why did he have to be so damned attractive? The strong line of his jaw, the way his tanned skin crinkled around his eyes when he smiled, the indentation in his chin the size of her little finger all distracted her. Her mouth went dry as she considered what to say. She hoped he wouldn’t take her suggestion the wrong way.
She squared her shoulders, drew a deep breath and looked him straight in his misty gray eyes. “Colin O’Reilly, will you be my husband?”
