Daddy By Design?. Kate Thomas
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you. Well, still, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. And I thank you for not laughing. Some people have.”
He shook his head. “Hey, I never laugh at death. My job revolves around the daily possibility of taking a permanent dirt nap—” His eyes rounded. “Oh, hell, excuse me. I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”
“And I was just teasing about throttling your husband, Mrs. Cavanaugh. I’m not the violent type.”
“Imagine my relief.” Glad to have her story out, Cinda smiled at him. “Would you call me Cinda, please? Every time you say Mrs. Cavanaugh, I think my mother-in-law is behind me. And I have enough trouble right now without that image.” Conjuring up Richard’s mother sent a pang of disloyalty through Cinda. She looked down and away, then up at Trey Cooper. “Look, about Richard. Please don’t think I didn’t care. I did. It’s just that I’m mad at him—as silly as that sounds—for being so careless with his life.”
“I can see how you would be.”
“You’re very kind. I keep telling myself I need to get over it. Richard has been gone awhile.” Trey Cooper raised his eyebrows as he glanced the way of her pregnant belly. Cinda got his drift. “Well, not a long while. Nine months.”
“Wow. That had to be tough…Cinda.”
“It was.” Something about the way he said her name sent a thrill rushing through her. He was so easy to talk to, so attentive and sympathetic that she almost forgot she was stuck in an elevator. “Richard was killed before I even realized I was pregnant, so obviously I never got to tell him.”
Trey Cooper’s expression morphed into the same one worn by people who are unwilling witnesses to a train wreck. “Cinda, does tabloid TV know about you? I swear, you keep this up and I’m going to be crying.”
Embarrassed, Cinda bit down on her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be burdening you with all this.” That was all she’d meant to say, but apparently today her psyche had a mind of its own. “Still, even if Richard had known about the baby, I don’t think it would have changed anything between us. We were separated. I think. I mean I’d left him, but he didn’t even realize it. Not for three days, anyway. But, oh well, that was our life.”
The poor man trapped in here with her, a captive audience, just stared at her, his features a mask of sympathy.
Cinda put a hand to her forehead. “There I go again. All this voluntary sharing of mine. Could I be more Tennessee Williams? More Blanche DuBois, depending on the kindness of strangers? You’d think this elevator car was named Desire, instead of Otis.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. All I want to know is what kind of idiot was Richard Cavanaugh not to have realized a woman like you wasn’t around anymore? To me, that would be like not noticing that the sun didn’t come up in the morning.”
He couldn’t be more wonderful. Sudden shyness, and a telling prick of tears, assailed Cinda. “Thank you. I needed that—especially in this condition.” She rubbed her rounded belly. Trey Cooper stared at her…warmly, openly. That awareness bug was flying around them again. Cinda quickly pointed to the phone he held in his hand. “Maybe now would be a good time to try that emergency number.”
“Right.” He put the receiver to his ear, listened, and then shook his head in apparent disbelief. “As long as you live, you are not going to believe this. The line is busy.”
“What?”
“I’m not lying. It’s busy.”
Cinda swallowed the rising panic in her throat. “Busy? How can it be busy? It’s the emergency phone for this elevator—and we’re the only ones in it.”
“Believe me, I’m aware of that. Maybe whatever knocked out the elevator, took out the phone, too. Add Edison to your list of inventors to hate right now.” He hung up the phone and then stuck his hands in his pants pockets. “Somewhere in here is a…aha, there it is.”
He pulled out a pocketknife and held it up for her inspection. “Never leave home without it.” He opened the knife and turned away from her to face the control panel.
This couldn’t be good. Cinda peeked around him to see what he might be doing. Dear God. He was un-screwing the metal facing plate over the buttons that marked each floor. She put a hand on his arm. “Trey, what are you doing?”
He spared her a glance. “Taking this panel off. Underneath, there should be miles of wiring. Maybe I can figure out which ones to hot-wire and get this elevator back on the fast track again.”
Cinda’s knees stiffened with her disbelief. “You can’t do that.”
“Actually, I probably can.” His expression radiated confident good humor. “You’re the one who told me to do something, remember.”
“Well, quit listening to me. What do I know? My point is this is not a ’56 Chevy. And I would appreciate it if you would not fiddle with the wires. You could blow us up.”
He shook his head, unfazed. “That’s only if there’s a bomb. The worst I could do is fool with the wrong wires and send us hurtling down in a free fall to the basement.”
“Well, thank God for that,” she said brightly, falsely. Cinda stared at his handsome but possibly crazy profile and retreated to the back wall. “I’m doomed. And so is my baby.”
Trey reached out and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, don’t give up on me so easily. I have lots of ideas. If I can’t hot-wire the thing, I’ll remove that ceiling panel up there and climb out on top of the car—”
“No you will not.” Cinda sternly stared at her companion. “You absolutely will not.”
He stepped back. “Are you always this bossy, Cinda?”
“Are you always this impractical, Trey?”
A flash of anger sparked in his eyes. “What’s so impractical about trying to get us out of here?”
Suddenly, he was acting like Richard Cavanaugh all over again—all strut and no substance, not someone she could rely on. “Look, Trey, there are two things here you are not going to do. One, you are not going to do anything to get yourself killed. And two, you are not leaving me here alone. I have been there and done that. And I am not going through it again.”
“All right.” He flipped his knife closed and shoved it back in his pocket. “You got any better ideas?”
Cinda cast about in her mind—only to suddenly realize that she should have been casting about in her handbag instead. She suddenly brightened. “Yes I do. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before now. My cell phone. It’s in my purse. We can call someone.”
Trey Cooper’s suddenly radiant expression said he forgave her doubting him. He stretched his arms wide, as if he meant to hug her. “Bless this technological age. We are saved. I could kiss you, Cinda Cavanaugh. And I just might do it, too.”
2
CINDA’S INSIDES FLUTTERED. What would Trey’s kiss be like? But then reality—which included her pregnancy, her ill-timed labor, and their current situation—set in and she looked away from his lips. “Not now,” she chirped, knowing she didn’t really mean it and that he probably hadn’t, either. “But I will take a rain check.”
His eyes warmed. “You got it.”
Her gaze locked with his. That intense, totally inappropriate awareness again flowed between them.
Then, feeling silly in the face of his flirting with her, Cinda busied herself with rummaging around in her purse. “I call my handbag Wonder Purse. Everyone teases me about its size. But every time anyone needs something, it’s in