Wanted: Father for Her Baby: Keeping Baby Secret / Five Brothers and a Baby / Expecting Brand's Baby

A surge of uncontrollable jealousy rose up inside Leenie. She hated Rita, sight unseen. “So Rita hurt you so badly that you decided to never risk being hurt again.”

“You make it sound melodramatic. It wasn’t. Just an old familiar tale. I cared more for her than she did for me. She found someone she liked better. Or should I say she met someone whose money she liked better.”

“You loved her madly, of course.”

“Of course.”

Hearing him admit it so freely stung Leenie terribly, as if he’d stabbed her in the heart with a very sharp knife. “Do you still?”

“Do I still what?”

“Love Rita.”

“Good God, no.”

“But you let what she did to you affect every aspect of your life,” Leenie said. “Even if you don’t love her now, she certainly still has a tremendous in-fluence in your life, doesn’t she?”

Frank glared at Leenie, tension etching the lines around his eyes and across his forehead. “Look, Slim, don’t try to psychoanalyze me. And don’t try to change me. I am what I am. Yeah, in part that’s thanks to Rita. And in part thanks to my mother, who was quite a bit like Rita as a matter of fact. And part of who I am is thanks to my own survival instincts. A guy who makes the same mistake twice is a fool.”

“And Frank Latimer is nobody’s fool.”

Their gazes collided, exploded, then when the metaphorical smoke cleared, he looked down at the newspaper and tapped it with his index finger. “It’s going to rain today. We might even get a little sleet.”

“Kate knows there’s something between us,” Leenie said. “That’s why she left us alone yesterday evening…why she stayed gone so long. You could have spent the night in my bed and she wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“If you’re trying to say something, just say it.” Not making eye contact with her, he picked up his mug, stood and went to the coffeemaker for a refill.

“Why didn’t you stay with me, Frank? We made love. Twice. It’s obvious that you care about me, that you care about our son. What are you so afraid of? Did you think sleeping with me all night would have been some sort of commitment, that I’d take it the wrong way and believe there was more to our relationship than there is?”

Full coffee mug in hand, he turned to face her, a somber expression on his face. “What do you want me to say?”

“Just tell me the truth. I think I deserve that much, don’t I?”

“The truth is—yeah, I care about you. I did last winter. I do now. The last thing I want to do is hurt you and if I allow you to believe we have a future together…I want to be good to you. I want to help you through this ordeal. I want to bring Andrew home to you. And I want a chance to get to know my son.”

Leenie sucked in a deep breath. Even without him saying it, she knew Frank already loved Andrew.

“When Andrew comes home, and he will, you and I will work out an arrangement so that you can be a part of his life.” Her pride in need of bolstering and not wanting Frank to suspect that he’d just broken her heart—again—Leenie forced a smile. “And don’t think that if we have sex again or even if we sleep all night together some night that I’ll start hearing wedding bells and ordering a picket fence to put up around this place. Heck, Frank, I’m the quintessential free spirit who has lost count of the men I’ve been with over the years. I don’t want to be tied down to one man any more than you want to get trapped by some woman.”

God would get her for those lies, Leenie told herself, all the while managing to keep her phony smile in place. She certainly wasn’t a simpering virgin, but she was hardly a good-time girl either. She remembered the names of her former lovers because there actually hadn’t been all that many and each time she’d been in a relationship, she had hoped he would be “the one.” But the biggest lie of all was that she didn’t want marriage. She did. Now more than ever. And not marriage to just anyone. She wanted Frank.

He narrowed his gaze as he studied her closely, as if trying to gauge the truth of her declaration. “Let me give you a little advice about men, Slim. A guy never likes to hear about a woman’s former lovers. And he especially doesn’t like to hear that there have been so many she can’t remember their names.”

Leenie laughed spontaneously. Frank was jealous. But he had no idea that he was. Why would a man be jealous of other men in a woman’s life unless he loved that woman? “Thanks for the advice. I’ll remember not to mention my former lovers to my next boyfriend.”

Frank growled quietly, then cleared his throat.

He was so jealous! It was apparent that he hated the idea of her being with another man. Past. Present. Or future.

Don’t do this to yourself, Leenie’s inner voice cautioned. Even if Frank does love you, he may never be able to admit it to himself, let alone to you.

Coming to an understanding, of sorts, they relaxed around each other. The tension between Frank and her should have eased up, and it had—to a certain extent. Beneath the calm alliance binding them together as Andrew’s parents lay an ever smoldering sexual edginess. Neither could escape a basic truth—they were in lust, if not in love. And lust was a potent motivator, not as enduring as love, but equally as powerful.

The hours passed slowly, turning the day into night and into day again. During the daylight hours, Kate and Frank kept Leenie busy and occasionally, for brief periods of time, she became so absorbed in whatever she was doing that the ache in her heart diminished a fraction. Those were moments when her entire focus was not on Andrew. But those moments were few and far between. The nighttime hours were the worst, when she lay alone in her bed, longing to hold her baby in her arms. And needing Frank at her side. It had been two days and nights since they’d made love and although he was tender and caring, he had not come to her again.

Leenie kept telling herself that he was afraid of her, of the way she made him feel. He didn’t want to love her, didn’t want a future with her, but the passion between them was something he could not ignore.

The waiting was wearing on her nerves. How much longer could she hold it together without falling completely apart again? Special Agent Dante Moran had called and talked to her. He’d told her to be patient, to keep hoping for the best, that it could well be only a matter of time before Andrew surfaced as an adoptive infant. So she clung to that hope because it might well be the only hope she had. If her baby had been taken by some woman wanting a child, she might never see him again. And if some lunatic had kidnapped Andrew, her baby was probably already dead.

Leenie shook her head, an effort to dislodge all morbid thoughts. Andrew was alive. He would come home to her. Frank kept repeating those words to her over and over again, as if he was trying desperately to convince himself as well as her.

“Are you ready to go?” Frank asked.

She nodded. “Yes, I’m ready.”

The first thing on the keep-Leenie-busy schedule for today was a visit to the hospital to see Debra, who was now resting comfortably in a private room. The doctors had said Debra might be released in a week or less. She had recovered remarkably well for a woman of sixty.

“Stay as long as you’d like,” Kate told them as they headed for the front door. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you two go out for lunch after your visit to Mrs. Schmale. I can hold down the fort here and if I get any news, I’ll phone y’all immediately.”

“I’d like to run by the station,” Leenie said. “Haley suggested that I might want to give a statement about Andrew’s abduction and make a personal plea for his return. I simply haven’t been up to doing something like that before now. WJMM has been broadcasting Andrew’s photograph periodically, with the news about his kidnapping, but Haley thinks a message from me might actually influence his abductor to return him.”

“Since Moran has given you the okay to make a public statement, I see no reason why you shouldn’t,” Frank said.

“Just so long as you don’t mention the infant abduction ring,” Kate reminded her. “You don’t want to do anything that might alert them that the feds are on to them.”

Leenie sighed. “God, I hope Andrew was taken by those damn people. It’s the one sure chance we have of getting him back, isn’t it?”

Frank put his arm around Leenie’s shoulders. “Come on, Slim, let’s go see Mrs. Schmale, then I’ll take you out for lunch. I’m in the mood for…a greasy hamburger and fries. And maybe a chocolate milkshake.”

Leenie smiled. “Just thinking about that kind of food has already put five pounds on me, mostly on my hips.”

Frank’s arm slipped down her back and encircled her waist. One hand slid down to cup her hip. “Five pounds won’t hurt you. Hell, ten pounds wouldn’t.”

“Frank Latimer, you know just what to say to a girl to make her happy, don’t you?”

“I try,” he said, sincerity and a touch of sadness in his voice.

Frank liked Debra Schmale and could see why Leenie had hired her as Andrew’s nanny. She possessed a kind disposition and maternal love oozed from her pores. The woman’s hospital room looked like a florist. Floral arrangements of every size and kind filled the small private room and four balloon bouquets floated in the air, held in place by ribbon streamers tied to both chairs in the room and to the knobs on the closet doors.

Leenie hugged Debra, careful not to squeeze too hard and hurt the healing patient. “It’s good to see you looking so well. I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’ll be just fine…once we get Andrew back. I feel so guilty for—”

“Hush that kind of talk,” Leenie said. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

“If only I could have stopped that woman from taking Andrew.”

“Mrs. Schmale, you had no way of knowing that the woman had deliberately crashed into your car so that she could kidnap Andrew. You did exactly what anyone would have done,” Frank told her as he walked over and stood directly behind Leenie.