Excuse Me? Whose Baby?: Excuse Me? Whose Baby? / Follow That Baby!

A tiny Dex. A nine-month-old Dex, all set to make the same mistakes as she blundered through life, to quail before the same unkind children who teased her about her adolescent chubbiness, to be scorned by the same self-centered teenage boys and to cry herself to sleep at night.

Annie needed a home with parents who could shield and support her. She deserved to grow up happier and with a greater capacity for love than the mother she resembled down to the smallest spiral of her DNA.

“It’s amazing.” Leaping from his chair, Jim went to crouch beside his daughter. “She looks exactly like me.”

“Like you?” Dex couldn’t believe it. “Since when do you have curly hair?”

“Oh, that.” He shrugged off the comment. “Haven’t you noticed her eyes? They’re mine. You can’t miss it!” Unstrapping Annie, he lifted her to his shoulder.

Silently, Dex conceded the point. The baby did have piercing brown eyes like his, not her blue ones. Still, it was a small resemblance.

Entranced at rising to such heights, the baby giggled and waved her arms. Nonsense syllables bubbled up. “Ga ga da da ba ba.”

“Did you hear that?” Jim demanded. “She said Dada!”

“You’re fantasizing,” Dex countered.

“I suggest the two of you come to some agreement between yourselves,” Burt said from behind his desk. “In her will, Dr. Saldivar explained the baby’s genesis and recommended that you receive joint custody since she has no close relatives. I suppose you could battle this out in court, but I doubt that would be in the best interests of the baby.”

Nor of Dex’s pocketbook, either. In fact, the battle would be lost before it began, since the best legal representation she could afford would be a student from De Lune University’s law school.

Last year, the campus legal aid center had handled a disputed family case in which, if she recalled correctly, the father ended up with custody of his mother-in-law and the judge took home the baby. Or, at least, that’s the way it had sounded in the campus newspaper.

“There’s no question about it. I’ll take charge from here.” Jim turned to the nanny. “Miss Smithers, I’d like you to work for me.”

“That can be arranged.” The nanny frowned at the baby in Jim’s arms and whipped out a comb. “Just a minute, sir.” Standing on tiptoe, she dragged the comb through the baby’s crinkled hair. It stuck after two inches.

“Naturally, I’ll match your salary,” he said. “You’ll get the same benefits and retirement plan as my other employees.”

“Dr. Saldivar’s salary would not be adequate. I’m well aware of who you are, sir.” Without waiting for his reply, the nanny produced a bottle marked Curl Relaxer and spritzed it over Annie’s head. The baby let out a wail and clapped her hands to her scalp. “No, no, no!” Miss Smither’s scolded. Pushing the tiny hands away, the nanny yanked the comb through the locks. “She’s lost her headband again. I think she must eat them.”

“Was Dr. Saldivar underpaying you?” Adjusting his grip on Annie, Jim wiped a blob of curl relaxer from his cheek.

“Dr. Saldivar had to make do on a researcher’s income. You don’t,” the woman responded tightly, and from her purse produced a plastic headband with gripper teeth. “Now hold still, Ayoka.” She clamped the thing across the baby’s temples and scraped back the hair. Tears welled in the little girl’s eyes.

“I’m willing to raise your salary if you’re being underpaid,” Jim said. “But only if you’re being underpaid.”

Dex couldn’t stand it any longer, not when tears were rolling down the baby’s cheeks. “Don’t you touch her!” she yelled at Miss Smithers. “You horrible woman, can’t you see that headband is hurting her?” Racing across the room, she removed the plastic band from Annie’s head and shoved it into the nanny’s grasp.

“I won’t have a child in my charge going around with messy hair.” The nanny looked down her nose at Dex’s own frothy mane.

Jim stared in surprise at the tears on his daughter’s cheeks and at the viselike headband. “I didn’t even notice,” he said.

“Of course you didn’t!” Dex retorted. “You’re not a father any more than I’m a mother. And neither is this poor excuse for a nanny. The child needs a real family.”

“I can learn,” the millionaire said quietly. “As for Miss Smithers, she and I have been unable to arrive at a mutually agreed-upon salary, so her services won’t be needed.”

“Cheapskate,” muttered the woman. After collecting her spray bottle from a polished table, where it left a moisture ring, she marched out of the room.

Squirming to watch her departure, Annie slid lower in Jim’s grasp. Her left shoe dropped to the floor, and a strap on her yellow sundress fell across one pudgy upper arm. In another minute, her outfit—which was much too flouncy and fussy, in Dex’s opinion—was likely to fall off entirely.

“Here, I’ll take her.” Without waiting for permission, she slid her hands under the little girl’s arms and transferred the baby to her own shoulder. Annie nestled there contentedly. “For the record, I like your hair, babycakes.”

Jim smiled. “I have to admit, she does resemble you a little.” He didn’t seem to notice the wet spot the baby’s mouth had left on his zillion-dollar suit.

“Resemble me?” Dex wanted to chew him out, but it was hard to stay angry when she held this cooing bundle in her arms. “She is me.” To the lawyer, she said, “A person is entitled to custody of herself, isn’t she? Well, look at us.”

“She’s half you,” Jim conceded. “And half me, Dex. You’ve already said you don’t want her.”

“I want what’s best for her. A good home, not a cold mansion the size of a hotel.” The campus had buzzed with descriptions of Jim’s hilltop residence since he hosted a scholarship fund-raiser last fall.

“Maybe you think she belongs in your apartment?” he replied. “A single room over a garage with clothes strewn everywhere and nothing but tofu in the refrigerator?”

“I wasn’t aware you two were previously acquainted,” Burt said.

Jim halted with his mouth open, then closed it quickly. Dex could feel herself blushing.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. She and this man had once made wild, earthshaking love—five months after the birth of their daughter. That had to be a first.

Not one that she cared to discuss with this lawyer, however. “We’ve met,” she said.

“I have a compromise to propose.” Jim held out a finger to Annie, who grasped it and took a tentative, tooth-free bite. “You don’t believe I can be a good single parent. Okay, I’ll prove it to you.”

“How?” Dex didn’t want to compromise, but she was in no position to dictate terms.

“Move in with me for a few days,” the man said. “I’ll take Annie on a trial basis, and you can watch to make sure I provide a proper home.”

“If you’d like to hire another nanny, there’s a registry in the area,” Burt said.

“I’ll have my secretary contact them,” Jim said. “In the meantime, my butler and my maid can fill in when I’m not available. And Miss Fenton can help, too, if she wishes.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to prove you can make a home for her.” Dex’s arms tightened around Annie. “Your butler and your maid will help out? And then you’ll leave her to a hired nanny? It’s just not acceptable.”

Not to mention that she had no desire to put herself in the middle of this man’s life. She had her own life, modest as it might be. And her privacy. And her sanity.

“The situation is only temporary,” Jim responded. “I expect to be married soon.”

Dex went hot and cold, then hot again. He was going to be married? Surely he didn’t mean to her! But if not, then to whom?

“Congratulations,” Burt said. “The way people gossip around Clair De Lune, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard the news.”

“I like to play my cards close to my chest,” Jim said.

“When did this happen?” Dex demanded, and only the presence of the lawyer restrained her from pointing out that, as recently as the Christmas party, Jim had been fancy-free.

“Nothing has happened, exactly.” He folded his arms with an air of confidence. “I’ve had an informal understanding for years with my high-school sweetheart. She’s a psychology researcher in Washington, D.C. Three months ago, I popped the question. She hasn’t given me an acceptance, but it’s only a matter of time.”

Dex did some mental arithmetic. That was only a month after they’d spent the night together. Why had he suddenly decided to propose to this long-distance amour?