Baby Of Convenience

Unmoved, Henderson merely smiled and thrust a beefy hand at the startled woman. “Dave Henderson, vice president and chief financial officer of Burton Technologies, Ms….?”

The woman licked her lips again, her gaze darting as if seeking escape. “Michaels,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. Juggling the baby to the crook of her left arm, she accepted Henderson’s handshake. “Laura Michaels.”

“Pleased to meet you. I hope you’re finding the hospitality around this gleaming mausoleum to be adequate.”

Clearly uncomfortable, she edged a longing look toward the open basement door. “Mr. Burton has been very kind.”

“Has he now?” Grinning broadly, Henderson angled a smug glance, the meaning of which did not escape Royce’s notice. “Tell me about yourself, Ms. Michaels. Have you lived in Mill Creek long? What is your profession? How old is your son? Is your husband the jealous type?”

Her jaw dropped in shock. “I beg your pardon?”

“Excuse us, Mr. Henderson was just leaving.” Furious, Royce grabbed Henderson’s elbow and hauled him toward the front door.

“She’s perfect,” Henderson whispered a moment before Royce shoved him onto the front porch. “I’ll do some checking into her family’s background, and see what kind of financial arrangements—”

Royce closed the door in his face.

Hovering at the massive carved entry for several seconds, he took a deep breath and tried to formulate an apology that he never had the opportunity to issue.

When he turned around, the foyer was empty. Laura Michaels was gone.

“Feel how soft he is,” she murmured, palming the warm ball of white fluff. “Look, she’s trying to open her little eyes.”

Jamie widened his eyes, curled his small mouth into an O as he reached a flat, stiff baby hand out to pat the kitten’s fluffy head. “Tickles,” he announced, snatching his hand back. He giggled, then thrust out both hands. “Me hold.”

“Let Mama hold the kitten until he gets bigger, sweetie. He’s very fragile right now.”

Thwarted, Jamie scowled and turned his attention toward the wriggling, mewing mass of adorable kittenhood in the straw nest Maggie had chosen for her brood.

“Me want him,” the baby announced, pointing to a mottled orange-and-white tabby whose coloring most resembled his mother’s. “Him Sam.”

“Sam, is it? A fine name.” She laid the white kitten with the soft, angoralike fur back into the nest. “What about this one, sweetie? What shall we name her?”

Laura had no idea if the tiny animal was male or female, since pronouncing the gender of such tiny kittens was difficult even for experts. Still, there was a definitive feminine aura about the precious ball of fluff. “She feels like a fuzzy little bunny rabbit, doesn’t she?”

Jamie nodded so hard he nearly fell over. “Bunny,” he chirped. “Bunny-Cat.”

“All right then, Bunny-Cat it is.” Smiling, she felt a nudge under her elbow. She absently stroked Maggie, who had finished her supper and wandered over to purr proudly. “Yes, you’ve done a wonderful job,” Laura told the blinking mama cat. “A lovely family indeed.”

Maggie licked her paw and proceeded to wash her face while Laura and Jamie continued to admire the kittens.

Along with Sam and Bunny-Cat there was a particularly vocal gray-and-white kitten that Laura dubbed Rascal, a black kitten with a white, tuxedolike bib that she called Cary Grant, and the runt of the litter, a diminutive calico with a quiltlike coat that begged the name Patches.

Jamie was enthralled with each and every one of them. “Bunny-Cat,” he murmured, snatching the white kitten before Laura could stop him. The kitten squeaked a protest as Jamie smacked a juicy kiss on its little head.

“Careful, sweetheart. They are too tiny to be handled much right now.”

The baby giggled happily, issuing no protest as she retrieved the squirming kitten from his grasp, and returned it to the nest. Despite her caution about handling them, she couldn’t keep herself from stroking each of the adorable animals, brushing a tiny ear with her knuckle, lifting a miniature paw with her fingertip.

Laura had always loved animals. She’d never had pets as a child. Her struggling single mom had barely been able to support Laura and her two sisters, let alone keep hungry animals well-fed and cared-for.

“Animals are like children in fur suits,” she’d once told a sobbing Laura, who’d brought home a puppy she wanted desperately to keep. “They are a big responsibility. Yes, they make us happy. But unless we can make them happy as well, it’s not fair of us to keep them from a good home where they’ll have enough to eat and a big yard to play in.”

Laura had understood. Kind of. But she’d never forgotten the agony of carrying that sweet, warm bundle from house to house until a kindly older woman took the puppy in, promising to give him a good home.

It had been the first time Laura had experienced the exquisite pain of a broken heart. It had not been the last.

As she slid a gentle finger down Cary Grant’s sleek black fur, a peculiar tingle warmed her spine. Beside her, Jamie issued a gleeful squeak, followed by a tickled laugh. She knew before she turned what she would see at the top of the stairs.

She wasn’t disappointed.

He was standing there, magnificently silhouetted by the spray of daylight from the upstairs foyer. Outlined, the perfection of his form was even more evident. The strength of his shoulders, the taper of hips that were obviously slender beneath the concealing shape of his expertly tailored suit.

Perhaps it was the angle of her gaze focused upward that made him seem taller than she’d realized, with the top of his head appearing to be only inches below the crest of the doorway.

But it wasn’t what she saw that affected her so deeply. It was what she felt, a radiating heat that she instinctively knew was emanating from his gaze. The aura was as tangible as a touch, and just as stirring. She didn’t have to see his eyes to know that they were focused on her with an intensity that seemed to penetrate every molecule in her body.

She was frozen in place, unable to move, to speak, to tear her gaze away. From what seemed a great distance, she was aware of sounds in the room. Her son’s laughter. Maggie’s proud purr. Mingling mews from the nest of kittens. All were overshadowed by the pounding of her own heartbeat, the frantic swish of her own pulse.

Something pulled on the strap of her tank top. An insistent tug, then another. “Mama, Mama!” Jamie’s voice broke the spell, releasing her from the mesmerizing presence at the top of the stairs. With some difficulty, she turned toward the toddler whose eyes were huge with exuberance. “Daddy’s home!”

Her heart seemed to wedge itself at the base of her throat, nearly choking her. The child was so desperate for a father that he consistently claimed any man who looked at him with kindness. “No, sweetie, that’s not your daddy.”

“Uh-huh,” he insisted with a smug grin, his glowing gaze riveted upward. “My daddy.”

A coolness swept her shoulders, as if a draft had slipped down the stairway. When she looked back, the doorway was empty. Royce Burton was gone, leaving nothing in his wake but her son’s sparkling grin, and a residual tingle along her own spine.

It was happening all over again, she realized. And it terrified her.

Chapter Three

Laura arrived at the Burton home later than usual, dressed in a mortifying serving uniform and armed with a fresh bag of kitty kibble.

Embarrassed by the silly attire required by her new job at a fast-food restaurant across town, she was relieved that Marta didn’t respond to her knock at the back door. Too bad the job at Quick ’n’ Good Food Mart didn’t work out. It was bad enough she had to board a public bus looking like a barn-dance escapee. The last thing she needed today was another run-in with a prune-faced shrew who treated Laura with veiled contempt at best, open hostility on her bad days.

And any day Marta laid eyes on Laura was a bad day.

Presuming the grumpy housekeeper was preoccupied elsewhere, Laura used her key to let herself into the immaculate kitchen.

Over the past few weeks, her life had disintegrated from merely chaotic to a crowded pressure pot of panic. Wendy’s tiny mobile home seethed with noise, with frustration, with the stress of too many humans crowded into too little space. Jamie, who’d always been a happy, cheerful child, had become cranky from lack of sleep, since his nap times were routinely interrupted by the shrieks of his boisterous roommates, and the cacophony of a blaring television through paper-thin walls.

These twice-daily trips to care for Maggie’s increasingly active brood served only to stir the melee, disturbing Laura on more than one level. Maggie’s enigmatic landlord, for example. Laura had yet to figure the guy out. He was a thoroughly unpredictable sort whose myriad moods both perplexed and fascinated her.

On the one hand, Royce Burton segued quite nicely into her perception of the rich and privileged with an aloof arrogance she recognized from having lived among the elitist Michaels clan.

On the other hand, he seemed oddly concerned about the health and well-being of not only Laura and Jamie, but the animals he professed to despise as well.

He complained about the kittens’ incessant mewing, yet had carpeted the entire basement to protect the tiny animals from the dampness of an increasing autumn chill. He seemed mightily irked by Jamie’s insistence on calling him “Daddy,” yet inevitably appeared in the study doorway to watch the child play with the shiny new toys that appeared like magic in the otherwise sterile mansion. He scowled at Laura as if her presence presented the world’s biggest annoyance. Yet he made certain a veritable buffet of refreshments was available during her visits, despite his housekeeper’s obvious distress at the additional effort required.