Jacqueline Diamond - Excuse Me? Whose Baby? - Excuse Me? Whose Baby? / Follow That Baby!

“Is that what you think makes a kid happy? Possessions?” Dex demanded.

“I realize we have different lifestyles.” Jim chose not to harp on the shabby state of her apartment. “But wealth doesn’t preclude love, you know.”

She sat in silence as the car turned into a side driveway that led to the six garages. The butler had left the station wagon outside in one of the striped parking spaces, and Jim slotted the sports car next to it.

He wondered if Dex’s reticence meant he’d scored a point. He hoped so, because he wanted this child more than he’d ever wanted anything, and that was saying a lot.

Annie bubbled with glee as he got out and lifted her from the car seat. Those big brown peepers of hers darted from his face to Dex’s, and then across the sweep of pink bougainvillea tumbling over a retaining wall.

“I called ahead to have my butler fix lunch,” he told Dex as she joined him and Annie on the pavement. “He promised he’d send someone out for formula and baby food.”

“Someone?” Dex trooped alongside as Jim strolled toward the house, taking three steps for every two he made. “How many people work here?”

“Not many,” he said. “There’s Rocky, the butler. And the gardener and the maid.”

“Do they live here?”

“They have apartments over the garages.”

“They sound like kindred spirits,” she said.

Unaccountably, Jim felt a prick of jealousy.

They mounted a curving stone staircase from the driveway to the garden above. The many levels of the site had been one of its primary appeals, although Jim had experienced some regrets later when he saw the problems it created for Rocky. His butler had lost a leg while serving in the Marines.

Still physically fit at forty-one, Rocky hated having anyone give him special treatment, though. He’d always been tough, and he still was.

Come to think of it, Rocky probably figured kids ought to be treated like Marine recruits. For the first time, Jim felt a twinge of worry at the possibility that Annie might not fit into his household quite as easily as he’d assumed.

If Nancy didn’t agree to marry him, he supposed he would have to hire a nanny on a long-term basis, but he didn’t like the idea. Dex was right about a child needing to be with people who loved her.

At the top of the steps, his guest paused to drink in the profusion of flowers peering shyly from a rock garden. There were primroses and petunias, pansies and dianthus and something yellow and daisy like whose name he didn’t know.

“This looks so natural,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

“My landscape architect designed the whole thing, right down to—” Jim frowned at a major weed sprouting near the edge of the bed. “Well, not that.”

He made a mental note to mention it to Kip LaRue, the gardener. It wasn’t the fellow’s fault he was sometimes inattentive. He’d been lucky to survive a helicopter crash that left him with head injuries three years ago.

Jim’s household was a testament to his early years in the Marines. He’d made rough-and-ready friends then, and now he employed some of them.

He was glad he’d called ahead to alert them to Annie’s arrival. Surely at least Grace, the maid, would warm to the little creature.

The smell of disinfectant hit Jim as he opened the side door that led into a sunroom. Dex wrinkled her nose, and Annie stuck out her tongue.

“What’s that smell?” Dex asked. “Never mind, I recognize it. Is somebody sick?”

“Not that I know of.” Jim regarded the glass-topped ice cream table set with expensive china. “It looks like we’re going to eat in here.”

If not for the smell, it would have been a lovely place for lunch. The high-ceilinged room had tall glass windows, a couple of designer trees and a profusion of hanging ferns and fuchsias. Filtered green light gave the air a magical quality, as if it hovered in another dimension.

Someone, however, had scrubbed the flagstone floor with disinfectant and applied liberal doses to the walls. Jim hoped this wasn’t Grace’s idea of how to prepare a house for a baby, but he suspected that might be the case.

“Can we open a window?” Dex blinked, and he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed from the fumes.

“Sure.” When Jim transferred the baby into her arms, Annie grabbed onto her mother like a baby monkey. He had to admit, the kid had strong ideas about whom she belonged to. “Do you have allergies?”

“Not usually. I may be allergic to your house, though,” Dex said.

As he cranked open the tall windows, Jim hoped she was joking. “My maid gets a little carried away sometimes with the cleanser. She used to be a Marine drill sergeant.”

“Are you serious?” Dex buried her nose in Annie’s cheek.

“She mustered out four years ago.”

Before he could explain further, the interior glass door crashed open. It hung on such well-oiled hinges that the slightest push made it crunch into the wall. As always, he jumped, and so did his guest.

A wheeled tray clattered through, covered with domed dishes and a small silver dish mounded with puréed fruit. It was pushed by a big man in camouflage fatigues.

“Attention!” shouted Rocky Reardon, drawing himself up to his full six-foot-five. “Mess is served!”

Dex’s entire body quivered as if the sound had set her vibrating. Annie clapped her hands over her ears. “Ow,” they both said.

Jim glanced anxiously at his butler. In the five years that Rocky had worked for him, the man had maintained strict discipline. Since he treated Jim as his superior officer, this posed no problems. But where would he put a baby in the chain of command?

“Rocky, this is Annie,” he said. “I hope you two will get along.”

Rocky’s gaze fixed on the little girl. It was a quelling look that had once set recruits’ knees to trembling—Jim’s included.

“Ba ba?” said the baby, unafraid, and held out one hand to him.

“She likes me.” Wonder trembled in Rocky’s voice. “Look how little she is! Sir, she’s the spittin’ image of you. Only a whole lot cuter.”

“You like babies?” Dex peered at him. Jim had to admire the way she refused to back off even when faced with this mountain of a man.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Rocky. “I sometimes take care of my nieces and nephews. Can I hold her?”

“Sure.” She waited as the butler walked stiffly across the room. People never suspected that Rocky had an artificial leg unless he chose to take it off and wave it at them, which he’d only done twice—once during a bar fight and another time when the maid demanded he cook hash the way they used to serve it in the Marines.

Rocky cradled the infant. From this great elevation, Annie studied her parents. “Whee!” she said.

“I could feed her in the other room,” the butler suggested. “I’ll hold her on my lap, since we don’t have a high chair yet. She’ll be perfectly safe, ma’am.”

“I suppose that would be all right.” Dex clasped her hands, as if worried but unwilling to insult the man.

“Grace went out for supplies, ma’am, but I processed this fruit here.” With his free hand, Rocky scooped up the silver bowl. “It’s all-natural canned peaches, no additives.”

“Thank you, Rocky,” Jim said.

“Yes, sir.” The man shifted as if trying to figure out how to salute with a baby in one hand and a bowl of puréed fruit in the other, then settled for a nod and left the room. Jim was relieved. He’d been trying for years to get his butler to stop saluting.

Dex peeked under one of the domes. “This meal looks great.”

“Help yourself.” Jim removed another of the covers.

Rocky hadn’t had time to prepare anything hot, but he’d done a fine job on the triangular tuna-salad sandwiches with the crusts trimmed. They were topped by sprigs of mint and accompanied by scoops of homemade potato salad.