The Baby Bargain. Peggy Nicholson
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Oh, drat, she hadn’t moved the load from the washer an hour ago, had she?
Focus, she commanded herself as she tucked the bottles of wine under her elbow, then hoisted the platter and bumped her hip against the swinging door that led into the dining room. As she passed the long mahogany table, she realized she’d told Sean to set it for four. She’d need another eight settings now.
But first food, she reminded herself. “Cocktail hour!” she announced with a smile and a flourish, handing the platter to Caroline Simmons and nodding at the coffee table. “And Leo, would you play bartender?” He was the one member of the latecomers who’d had the grace to look embarrassed. She placed the bottles of chardonnay on the sideboard, where he’d find glasses and a corkscrew.
“Could you use any help in the kitchen?” he asked, smiling down at her.
“Oh, thanks, not at all! Just sit down and put your feet up. You’ve had a long day.” She threaded her way through the rest of her milling guests, with a smile and a word for each, then went up the front stairs, consciously imitating Zorro’s unruffled serenity. Once she’d turned at the newel post on the landing and was out of sight, she took the last steps three at a time. Help? Oh, no, not me!
Arriving at Sean’s door—closed as always—she paused and drew a breath, steeling herself. Then knocked. “Sean?”
No answer, though she could hear music turned down low, beyond his barricade. “Sean, please.” He hated it if she opened his door without permission, but then, the other rule of his game was that he never seemed to hear her. “Sean!” She gritted her teeth and opened the door. “Sean, honey—”
“I told you, you’re supposed to knock!” he growled, glaring back at her from over his shoulder. He lay sprawled on his stomach on the bed, a book propped on his pillow.
“I need help,” she said, voice quivering with the effort to keep it level. She didn’t sound far from tears, she realized. Wasn’t. Oh, do I need help. This job had never been intended for one. That wasn’t the way she and Peter had planned it.
But now all she had was Peter’s son, glaring at her with Peter’s brown eyes. And none of Peter’s tenderness. “Please, Sean? I need eight more places set at the table, then some help in the kitchen.”
“Uh.”
She resisted the urge to demand if that meant yes or no. Hope for the best. “Thank you.” She shut the door gently.
Go ahead with the original barbecue? she asked herself as she hurried downstairs. No, the coals would take forever to reach grilling heat. But she couldn’t see cooking tomorrow’s steaks indoors tonight—what a waste. And Monday’s chicken was still frozen solid. Pasta, she decided, topped with peas, bacon and roasted red peppers. Garlic bread and salad. She shoved through the kitchen door.
Petra sat on the floor, face screwed to a tiny red knot of woe, beating on the linoleum with a wooden spoon in time to her hiccuping sobs. “Oh, sweetheart, did you miss me?” Dana scooped the baby up, kissed the top of her downy head, then settled her onto one hip and set to cooking one-handed. Peter, Peter, oh, Peter, if you could see us now…
CHAPTER THREE
LATE AS IT WAS, supper had been a success, Dana told herself as she paraded a steaming apple tart straight from the oven to the table. Sean followed glumly, carrying a bowl piled high with round scoops of vanilla ice cream. “So who wants pie?” she asked gaily amid the groans of delight and “oohs” of admiration.
Beyond the kitchen door, the phone rang. Dana glanced over her shoulder, her brows drawing together. It was well past nine, late for anyone to be calling. The phone rang again, and she bit her lip—Petra was sleeping in there in her playpen!
“I’ll get it,” Sean muttered, thumping his bowl down beside her.
By the time she’d served out dessert, he’d still not returned. So either the call was some tourist inquiring about vacancies at the Ribbon R, and for once Sean was handling it, or the caller had wanted her stepson in the first place.
Much as they needed to fill all the gaps in their summer schedule, Dana found herself hoping the call had been for Sean. At fourteen, he didn’t seem to get enough phone calls—didn’t seem to have any friends to speak of. Although, he confided in her so little, she supposed she’d be the last to know if he did. Still, a schoolmate calling Sean nights—she pictured a giggling thirteen-year-old charmer with a terrible crush and twice Sean’s social skills—now, that would be a welcome development. Dana ached for his loneliness, but so far she’d found no way to cure it. Peter would have known how—
Stop, she told herself firmly. After fourteen months, it was time she stopped calling on Peter.
Fourteen months or fourteen years or fourteen lifetimes, how could she not? She sat, smiling at her guests around the table, glad for the candlelight that turned tears in the eyes to sparkles.
WHEN ALL HER DUDES had left the table to wander sleepily from the main house and off up the hill to their cabins, Dana set to clearing away. A very long day, she mused as she entered the kitchen, arms loaded. “Sean?” she murmured to warn him, in case he was still engaged in conversation.
No Sean.
Dana frowned, staring at the phone on the wall beside the back door. Its receiver had been dropped on the counter. And—Her frown deepened. He’d left the door ajar.
Hand at her throat, she spun to the playpen—then breathed again at the sight of the small, blanket-draped lump in its center. At least the baby was still covered. The draft of cool mountain air would have done her no harm. Still…Does he ever think? She lifted the receiver to her ear, heard the dial tone, let out a tckk of irritation and hung it up.
What had caused him to bolt like that? The worst of it was, if she went after Sean and asked what was wrong, she knew exactly what he’d say. “Nothing,” she murmured, and grimaced.
Okay. So leave him alone, then. He’d be up in the loft of the barn, one of his hideouts when he wanted to escape her. Or else mooching along the Ribbon River—the snow-melt stream that stairstepped down the mountain, chuckling past the cabins, then the house, to spread out into glistening trout pools when it reached the valley meadows.
Dana turned back to her daughter. If I can’t help Sean, at least your wants are simple, my love. Gathering the sleeper into her arms, she buried her nose against Petra’s warm neck and, with eyes closed, simply breathed in her scent for a moment. Then she carried the baby softly up to bed.
HALF AN HOUR LATER she was rinsing the last pots and pans. Sean had yet to make an appearance, though a few moments ago she’d half thought she heard him thump through the front door. Had he returned that way to avoid her? But if that wasn’t him…Dana frowned out the window into the darkness. Go find him and coax him home? Or leave him be?
Something moved in the glass. She blinked, and then realized—a reflection from the room behind her; the dining room door swinging open. Sean stood in the doorway, one arm bracing the door wide, as silently he watched her.
The skin along her spine contracted in a rippling shudder. Not Sean, but someone much taller, wider, darker. Standing with the stillness of a predator.
Why didn’t I lock the door?
She hadn’t for the same reason she never did. Guests trooped in and out all day; Sean came and went; and this wasn’t Vermont, where she’d been raised, where everyone locked up. Out here in the West, you depended on distance to protect you. The guest ranch was four miles down a private road from the highway. No one came here by chance.
Behind her, the stranger moved at last, letting the door go and striding on into the kitchen. The blood thrummed in her ears. Dana chose her longest carving knife from the drainage rack, examined it for imaginary food specks, rinsed it, then, still holding it, let her right hand casually droop below the rinse water. She shut off the faucet and half turned.
“Oh!”