Bringing Up Baby Page 6

  Her lips puckered with uncertainty. “I wasn’t cooking.”

  “Is this your pot?” He thrust the blackened object toward her.

  She shrugged. “It could be. Under all that soot, I can’t tell.”

  “Either you’re unbelievably careless, leaving your stove on and your back door unlatched, or—”

  “What are you trying to say?” Colin demanded.

  “Do you live here, too?” the chief asked.

  “No, I’ve done some work here, but tonight I was just passing by.”

  “What I’m saying is that the owner here—”

  “Devon Clarke,” she said.

  “Ms. Clarke,” he amended, “is either negligent or this fire was set intentionally.”

  “Devon may be scatterbrained,” Colin said, his anger over her carelessness flaring anew at the chief’s accusations, “but she’s no arsonist.”

  “Thanks for your ringing vote of support,” she said in a voice laced with sarcasm before crumpling back onto the curb.

  Behind her, fire fighters stripped off their protective clothing and breathing equipment and began loading hoses into the trucks.

  “We’ll secure the premises for the night,” the chief said, “and the arson investigators will be around at first light. Do you have someplace to stay?”

  Remembering his promise to his father, Colin spoke up. “I’ll take care of her.”

  After a final questioning look, the chief walked away.

  Devon straightened her back and shoulders and lifted her chin. “I can take care of myself.”

  “You have no clothes, no money, no credit cards,” Colin countered.

  “I’ll stay with Leona on the beach,” she said.

  “And the baby?” He shifted Amanda in his arms.

  “I have her carryall with diapers and clean clothes.”

  “What about food?”

  “If they’ll just let me in the house to get my wallet and keys…”

  He gestured toward the front entrance where yellow warning tape sealed the door. “Until their investigation’s complete, I doubt they’ll let anybody in.”

  A group of curious neighbors had gathered on the opposite side of the street, and an elderly woman broke away from the crowd and approached. Her quick blue eyes took in Devon’s skimpy attire, Colin and the baby.

  “You’re welcome to stay with me awhile, Devon,” she offered. “I’m so sorry about your lovely house.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Kaplan,” Devon said. “I’ve already made arrangements, but I’d appreciate your keeping an eye on things here until I can move back in.”

  The old woman nodded and crossed the street to rejoin the curious throng. Colin eased the sleeping Amanda into her carrier and secured it in the truck cab with the seat belt.

  Devon climbed in next to the car seat and pulled out her portable phone. “I’ll call Leona and tell her we’re coming.”

  He placed his hand over the slender fingers that gripped the phone and fought against the emotions her vulnerability triggered in him. “Dad’s guest room has a crib for the grandkids when they visit, and we’re only a few blocks from here—more convenient for you to supervise the cleanup than from all the way out on the beach.”

  Drawing her feathery brows together in a thoughtful frown, Devon observed the slumbering child and pondered a moment before conceding. “But only for Amanda’s sake.”

  She leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. The stench of smoke from her hair and shirt permeated the truck, and she wondered if the tightness in her chest resulted from fumes or the frantic pounding of her heart at Colin’s touch.

  After the smoke alarm awakened her, she’d almost panicked when she’d opened the door to a dark, smoke-filled hallway. Even once she’d dragged the baby to the safety of the porch roof, she’d wondered whether help would arrive before the fire consumed them.

  When Colin O’Reilly, his tanned chest gleaming golden in the streetlight, had appeared on her lawn, he’d been an answer to a prayer, but now he sat hunched over the steering wheel, glowering with anger—and no wonder. He considered her a senseless ninny who’d attempted to enter a burning building to save her career. He hadn’t allowed her to explain that Gramma Donovan’s notebooks were her only family tie, a precious heirloom that meant almost as much to her as life itself.

  Even worse, he thought her careless enough to set her own house afire. How could he know it had been months since she’d used the cooktop? If meals couldn’t be prepared in the microwave or a conventional oven, she changed the menu.

  As for the unlocked back door, she had no explanation. Ever since she’d moved into the big house alone, she’d followed an unvarying ritual of checking every door before going to bed, and tonight had been no exception. A piercing chill racked her. Someone had picked her lock and set the fire. But who? And why?

  Colin’s deep baritone interrupted her musings. “You okay?”

  She studied his strong profile, silhouetted by the headlights of passing cars, and shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t come along. “Thanks to you. Your truck screeched to a halt in front of the house like the timely arrival of a guardian angel.”

  “God looks after fools and little children.” His toneless voice gave no clue to his feelings, and he kept his gaze on the road.

  The blaze of her temper chased her chill away. “I know which category Amanda falls into, but I object if you’re calling me a fool.”

  He shrugged. “If the shoe fits—”

  “I didn’t leave the stove on, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then who did—the tooth fairy?”

  “Why are you so smug?” Amanda jerked in her sleep at the volume of the query, and Devon lowered her voice. “Is it beyond the realm of possibility that someone broke into my house and set the fire?”

  He flicked a glance toward her. “Do you have enemies?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Disgruntled readers?”

  She shook her head. “And even if I did, none of them knows my true identity.”

  “You’ve just proved my point.” A self-satisfied smile deepened the cleft in his chin.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. People who start fires aren’t wrapped real tight to begin with. Have you considered that the arsonist doesn’t know me and picked my house at random?”

  A solemn look replaced his smile. “You’re right. Look, I’m sorry. I’ve just gone through a nasty divorce, and I tend to take my problems out on those around me.”

  When she glimpsed the pain beneath his curt behavior, she bit back an angry reply. He had saved her life and was offering her shelter, so he wasn’t all bad. In fact, under different circumstances, he’d be downright appealing. If nothing else good came out of the fire, at least she’d be living close to him for a while. She’d use that time to convince him to do the Sara Davis interview.

  She tugged his shirt tighter around her shoulders, all too aware of him across the breadth of the carrier on the bench seat. Over the smoky smell of her own clothes, the scent of musky after-shave and wood shavings teased her nostrils. Just her luck. She was moving in with a man who looked and smelled fabulous, acted like a hero, loved children—and thought she was the dumbest thing since pet rocks. Not to mention that he considered her a first-class fraud.

  Colin turned the truck into the driveway of a twostory Dutch Colonial, and she observed his muscles tense when the movement of the vehicle slid her toward him. Without a word, he killed the engine and sprinted around the truck. With Amanda under one arm and the carryall over the other, he trudged up the front walk.

  In her weariness, she struggled to place one foot before the other and somehow made it up the steps into the house. Colin continued down a wide hallway, and she followed.

  At the far end of the house, he entered a room, switched on a light and pointed toward an open door. “The bath’s through there. I’ll put the baby to bed while you clean up.”

 
Without protest, she stumbled into the bathroom, closed the door and stripped off Colin’s shirt and her grimy top. Beneath the pounding pulse of hot water, she scrubbed the oily residue of smoke from her hair and body and struggled to stay awake. A few minutes later, swathed in towels, she entered the bedroom to find Colin nowhere in sight.

  Another of his denim shirts, clean, soft and faded, lay on the pillow of the turned-down bed. His thoughtfulness brought a contented smile to her lips. “What, no chocolate? What kind of hotel is this?”

  At the sound of her voice, Amanda murmured in the crib, and Devon tucked a blanket around her. She towel-dried her hair, shrugged into the fresh shirt and slid between the cool sheets. In minutes, she dropped into an exhausted sleep.

  She dreamed she was running, trying to escape a faceless pursuer, but baby furniture and stacks of diapers barred her way. In the distance, a golden man with pewter eyes called to her, but she couldn’t reach him. Suddenly, railroad tracks appeared beneath her feet, and the scream of an approaching engine bore down on her.

  She bolted upright with her heart pumping, perspiration beading her face, while the engine’s wails resounded in the strange surroundings. She groped for the bedside lamp, and soft light flooded the guest room.

  Like the call of an advancing locomotive, Amanda bellowed from the crib in the corner.

  Forcing her tired lids to stay open, Devon threw back the covers and stumbled to the crib. “Poor kid, you’re the only one whose day’s been worse than mine.”

  Amanda cried more loudly in response and scrunched her tiny face in anger until it glowed beet purple. She’d kicked off her covers, and her fists and feet thrashed the air.

  Devon checked Amanda’s diaper, but it was unsoiled. What now? She scooped the writhing infant into her arms and searched her memory for the column she had written on babies who wouldn’t sleep. What had Gramma Donovan recommended?

  She settled into a rocking chair beside the crib and jiggled Amanda in the crook of her arm. Although she rocked gently and tried singing a soothing lullaby, the child’s fussing escalated and her face reddened until Devon feared the infant would break every blood vessel in her face.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” she muttered. “My singing has that effect on everybody.”

  In desperation, remembering Gramma’s advice on teething babies, she gently forced a finger into Amanda’s mouth and attempted to massage her gums. The baby crunched down on her finger like a vice, and Devon yelped and jerked her hand away. Her reaction provoked an even angrier response from the cranky child.

  Frustrated, she rose to her feet, slung the baby over her shoulder and paced the floor. Amanda continued to shriek loudly enough to wake the dead, and Devon hoped her cries would roust Colin to come to her rescue.

  Thank God her readers couldn’t see her now. What an expose for the tabloids: Baby Expert Stumped! Hasn’t A Clue How To Quiet Screaming Child! Amanda Donovan Found Dead Of Exhaustion At Dawn!

  The word colic bubbled up from her memory. Maybe that was the problem. The poor kid had lost her parents, lived a week in a strange environment, been dragged halfway across the country to another strange place, which then caught fire—enough chaos to give anyone a bellyache.

  Or maybe she was just hungry. With chagrin, Devon recalled her column on recognizing the differences in a baby’s cries and what each sound indicated. What a crock of garbage that had been. Amanda’s cries all sounded the same, only some were louder than others.

  Where was Colin? A man would have to sleep like the dead not to be awakened by the racket Amanda was producing.

  Devon deposited the bundle of rage in the middle of the double bed and scrounged through the carryall for a clean bottle and a can of formula. Minutes later, she returned to the rocker with the child and encouraged her to stop squalling long enough to give her the bottle.

  Alternately, Amanda sucked and whimpered. When her tears ceased, Devon set aside the bottle. She remembered that babies should be burped, but feared waking her again and continued rocking. The child felt unwieldy in her arms, as uncomfortable as her first encounter with a tennis racket had been until the pro had taught her the proper grip. Maybe she’d soon get it right, but if she didn’t, no problem. The child wouldn’t be with her long, because she was determined to place Amanda with a real family as soon as possible.

  Fatigue seeped through her bones, and her eyelids closed. She was only dimly aware sometime later that someone was taking the baby away. Through a fog of exhaustion, it barely registered when someone lifted her in strong arms and tucked her into bed. When warm lips brushed her forehead, she knew she was dreaming.

  She drifted back into a deep sleep, surrounded by the fragrance of after-shave and wood shavings.

  Chapter Five

  The introduction of solid food into your baby’s diet is an important event. Choosing healthy foods sets a pattern for life. However, never allow mealtime to become a battle between a demanding mother and a reluctant eater.

  Amanda Donovan, Bringing Up Baby

  Devon dreamed of arms like tender steel, lifting her as if she were weightless, pressing her close to muscles like warm, pliant rock. With a wistful sigh, she snuggled deeper into her pillow, where the crackle of paper beneath her cheek awakened her. She opened her eyes to sunlight filtering through the floweredchintz draperies of the O’Reilly guest room, pulled herself upright and retrieved a note crumpled on her pillow.

  “Gone to check on Dad,” Colin had written. “Back soon. Help yourself to breakfast.”

  When she tiptoed to the crib where Amanda still slept peacefully, she caught sight of herself in the dresser mirror. In the too-large shirt with her hair as disheveled as a fright wig, she resembled a poster child for Save the Children. She raked her fingers through the tangled mass without effect, then rummaged through the carryall until she found a tiny comb-and-brush set of pink plastic decorated with bunnies.

  “Desperate times, kiddo,” she whispered to the slumbering child. “We girls have to stick together and pool our resources.”

  After a quick wash, brushing her teeth with her finger and taming her hair with Amanda’s tiny comb, she set out in search of the kitchen.

  Sunlight poured into the spacious room at the back of the house. An immense oaken table with a wellscrubbed surface, a low shelf filled with toys, a high chair in the corner and a bulletin board covered with snapshots indicated the kitchen was the hub of O’Reilly family activities.

  She poured herself a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker Cohn had left on for her and studied the photographs. A family grouping featured Mike with his arm around a plump, pleasant woman with laughing eyes as they stood in the midst of their children. Devon recognized Colin’s sisters and brothers from the clefts in their chins and their mother’s smile.

  A tall, reed-slim blonde in a designer suit of watered silk linked arms with Colin and appraised the camera with an ice blue gaze. The photo captured the cool haughtiness of the woman, and Devon shuddered. No wonder Colin resisted posing as her husband. After a wife like the one in the picture, he’d be stepping down from caviar to Spam.

  All the other family shots showed Colin with a niece or nephew on his lap or in his arms. Almost hidden among the overlapping photos, she spotted a fading picture of a beaming teenage Colin in wrestling trunks, holding aloft a trophy. Another revealed Colin, looking much as he had when she’d first met him, in work clothes with his tool belt slung on his hips, posing with another man before the rough framework of a house under construction. The grinning man with large, prominent teeth looked familiar, and when she detected the Habitat For Humanity sign across the doorway behind them, she realized with a jolt that the weathered-looking carpenter shaking Colin’s hand was former president Jimmy Carter.

  But the family groups held her attention. The sense of love and belonging emanating from those happy faces was what she’d yearned for all her life, what she wanted for Baby Amanda that she, as a single mother, couldn’t give her. Only with the money f
rom the Sara Davis interview could she engage lawyers to fight Farnsworth and see that Amnanda was placed in the home she deserved.

  With renewed resolve, Devon removed a directory from the counter beneath the wall phone and looked up the number of Leona’s hotel.

  “Good morning,” Leona greeted her. “Have you convinced your handsome handyman to submit to Sara’s questions?”

  “Not exactly. There’s been a slight hitch.” Devon described the fire and Colin’s rescue. “So I’m at his house now, and without clothes—”

  “My, my, you do work fast,” Leona said with a throaty chuckle.

  “Lucky for you you’re beyond my reach,” Devon said with a flush. “Colin was merely being kind. There’s nothing between us.”

  “Of course not,” Leona replied with an agreeableness that suggested just the opposite. “Now, what do you need?”

  Arguing with her agent’s assumption of a dalliance between her and Colin would be futile, so she addressed the problem at hand. “Could you stop by the mall and pick me up something to wear? I’ll reimburse you.”

  “I love any excuse to shop.” Leona scribbled down the sizes and Colin’s address as Devon gave them to her. “Then I’ll come straight there, and together we’ll extract a commitment from the reluctant Colin. Sara insists you sign this contract for the interview today.”

  “Call Sara and tell her about the fire. Maybe she’ll give us some leeway.” A whimper from the guest bedroom interrupted her. “Gotta go. The baby’s awake.”

  As soon as she dropped the receiver onto its cradle, Amanda’s protest ceased. Devon used the reprieve to call her insurance agent, who promised to send a restoration crew to her house that morning.

  “They’re real pros,” he assured her. “They’ll have you moved back in within three days tops.”

  Before Devon had finished with the insurance man, Amanda’s cries resumed with an intensity that allowed no further delays. Hoping to pacify her before she worked herself into another rage, Devon raced into the guest room. The baby stopped crying when she spotted Devon. Her wide eyes sparkled and her lips curved upward in a toothless grin as Devon changed her diaper.