The Baby Pursuit. Laurie Paige
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“I’ll send lunch in,” Rosita promised warmly.
“That would be kind of you.” Dev spoke to Cruz. “Cruz Perez? Please come in. Thank you for coming.”
The door closed in Vanessa’s face. For the fourth time that morning.
Dev had first talked to her father at length and without her presence, then Ruben Perez, Rosita’s husband and the ranch foreman, then Rosita, and now Cruz. She was nearing the screaming point—
“Come,” Rosita said, her dark eyes filling with amusement. “He wants to have lunch with you.”
Vanessa’s chin dropped in surprise. “He does?”
“You know he does,” Rosita said wisely.
She led the way to the kitchen where two women busied themselves between the huge stove and wall of double ovens. The smell of baking bread filled the air as usual on Friday morning. By Monday, the fresh loaves would be gone and new ones would be baked to get them through the week.
The kitchen had been the twins’ favorite place after the death of their mother. Rosita had taught them to cook everything from crown roast to homemade tortillas. She had also taught them that grief could be bearable when shared.
“Whole or half?” Rosita asked, referring to the loaf of bread she was slicing.
“Half,” Vanessa said.
While Rosita prepared a whole sandwich for Dev and a half one for her, Vanessa arranged their dishes on a tray, including the salads and cups of tortilla soup for each of them. She wasn’t sure if she should allow herself to be mollified at being included during lunch or if she should give him the silent treatment for not letting her take part in the questioning.
She sighed heavily.
Rosita poured tall glasses of iced tea. “Next time you have hot tea, I will read the leaves for you.”
“Do you think you’ll see anything?” As a child, Vanessa had always wanted to know the future.
The housekeeper had finally told her she was a very mysterious person and nothing could be seen in her future, except that it would be fun and filled with adventure.
But that had been Victoria’s future. Her twin, a pediatric nurse, was the one off on an adventure, teaching health and helping children on some tiny island republic off the coast of South America. Vanessa liked things closer to home.
Carefully carrying the tray back to the study, Vanessa had a sudden yearning to see her twin and confide all the hopes and misgivings of her heart. Only Victoria would understand completely…
“Come in,” Dev called when she tapped the door with the toe of her shoe.
“I can’t open the door,” she muttered, and heard the note of complaint in her tone. Right. How to win friends and influence your enemies: be a grouch.
The heavy portal opened. She entered the study. “Clear the desk,” she ordered.
He stacked his papers neatly to one side. She balanced the tray on the corner of the desk and spread the feast on the open space. She pulled the chair to the side and took her place. Dev took his position behind the desk.
“You look quite at home there,” she told him. “My father might get jealous. The lord of the manor used to sit there and dole out justice to my brothers and us.”
“Us?” he said.
“Victoria and myself.”
“You were always a pair?”
“Of course. We were twins. What one did, the other did, too.” She grinned. “We thought we had it all worked out when we decided that one of us should study for the biology test and the other for English finals when we entered high school. Since we had been assigned to different classes, we thought we could simply swap and each take the same test twice.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes.” She grimaced. “But about halfway through our freshman year, the English teacher caught on when someone spilled milk on Victoria. My dress was dry when I went in to take the test right after lunch. My dad grounded us for the entire semester after that.”
“Tough,” he said. He even looked sympathetic as well as amused. He took a bite out of his sandwich.
Vanessa ate, too, aware of the quiet that surrounded them. Her father was in town, probably visiting Lily. Matthew and Claudia had moved out of their house in town and back to the ranch to escape the prying eyes of the paparazzi who had hounded them since the kidnapping. There was still speculation on prime time news about the situation. The couple had taken up residence in the wing formerly occupied by Uncle Cameron’s family before he and Aunt Mary Ellen had built their own house.
“Why isn’t Savannah Clark’s name on the list?” Dev asked, breaking into her musings.
“I forgot about her,” Vanessa admitted. “She wasn’t on the guest list for the christening since I had invited her down to visit with me for the week.”
“Did she date any of your brothers?”
“Heavens, no. She and I were roommates in college. She didn’t know my family before then. I wouldn’t wish my brothers on any unsuspecting female.”
He didn’t seem to see the humor in her statement. His thick black brows drew closer over the beautiful summery blue of his eyes.
“She’s a teacher in Dallas?”
Vanessa paused before answering. “Yes. How did you know that?” She reached for the list.
He moved it out of her grasp.
“Tell me about that day. Start right after the christening and tell me everyone you spoke with and where you were at the time. Picture it in your mind.”
“Perhaps you’d like me to use self-hypnosis and regression?” she suggested, annoyed at his excluding her from his confidence, especially when she had already told him all she could remember at least three times.
“Just what you recall will be fine.” He pulled a legal pad toward him.
He was being very distant and crisp with her this morning. It was a denial of the attraction between them and the magic of those moments in her bedroom.
“How did you know about Savannah?” she asked.
“The sheriff filled me in.”
It was foolish to feel personally rejected, but she did. She knew this was an investigation. He was doing his job. Still, he could have told her what he had in mind.
The terrible despair she’d felt upon realizing the baby was really gone fell upon her. Her eyes ached with unshed tears. She took a steadying breath.
“Savannah and I stood directly behind my father and Lily…Lily Redgrove Cassidy. I forgot to put her down, too. She’s Dad’s fiancée.”
“When his divorce from his present wife—Sophia—is final,” Dev reminded her, his tone without inflection. He tugged his tie loose, then tossed it to the chair that held his jacket.
“Sometimes I wish Sophia would choke on a chicken bone.”
Her comment brought a flicker of emotion to his eyes. It wasn’t fair for a man to have eyes like that, Vanessa thought, eyes so beautiful they made a woman melt whenever he looked her way—even when he was frowning rather ominously, as he was at her right now.
“Just kidding,” she added.
“I wouldn’t,” he said without a smidgen of a smile. “Things sometimes have a way of coming true, and then you’re sorry for your evil thoughts.”
“Were you?” she asked with sudden insight.
“What?”
“Sorry when