Читать книгу Baby's First Christmas - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 7

“W hat do you mean, you don’t have it?”

Sullivan Travis’s voice thundered off the small office’s glass walls, filtering out into the stark white reception area of the Hawley-Richman Institute. All sorts of horrifying ramifications occurred to him as he looked at the lab coat clad technician. There had to be some mistake.

“If you don’t have it, where is it? Is it lost?” If it was lost, no one could use it, he reasoned. He began to relax. Lost. All right, that would be the end of it, then.

The young woman looked up at him, torn between being annoyed and being intimidated. The tall, dark-haired man on the other side of her desk had a commanding presence that unnerved her. She eyed the security buzzer on the underside of her desk. They didn’t get many irate people at the sperm bank. At least, none since she’d been there, but there was a guard on duty just in case. She wondered if this was going to be that kind of “case.”

He was literally leaning over her desk. In an effort to keep things calm, she rose, shoving her hands deep into her pockets so he wouldn’t notice that they were shaking. Martha Riley cleared her voice and tried to sound official.

“It’s been used, Mr. Travis.” What had he thought they would do with his “donation”? After all, he had been paid for his contribution. It was the Institute’s property now, not his.

One look at his face told her that he wasn’t ready to accept that line of reasoning.

“Great, just great.” He blew out a breath, momentarily stumped. Now what?

Sullivan ran his hand through his hair as he sighed. He looked up toward the ceiling, metaphorically seeking heavenly guidance. It seemed rather ironic when he thought of it. Heaven had never figured into the path that his older brother had chosen. A rebel from the moment he formed his first words, Derek Travis had been one of a kind. He had been the epitome of the prodigal son, except that he had never returned home to make amends.

He’d reveled in discord for discord’s sake, and the pieces that were left in his wake were something that Sullivan was always required to reconstruct. Or, when that failed, to sweep away.

But this latest stunt defied description. It was outrageous, even for Derek. How could he have done this? What could he possibly have been thinking?

Sullivan had still been reeling from his brother’s sudden death when he had come across the letter from the sperm bank among Derek’s possessions. He’d stared at it for several minutes, stunned. What made it all the more bewildering was that the letter hadn’t been addressed to Derek. It had been addressed to him, care of Derek.

Reading it, Sullivan had sunk down on the lumpy mattress in his brother’s meager studio apartment, his knees buckling beneath him. He read and reread the letter several times, but the words remained the same each time. Derek had sold his connection to the future, his potential offspring, for what amounted to a few dollars. Sullivan assumed he’d done it to buy art supplies. Getting back at his father was only an added bonus.

Derek and Oliver Travis had never been on the same side of a conversation. It seemed to Sullivan that Derek had always gone out of his way to upset their father.

But this…this was beyond understanding.

Though Derek had pulled some really stupid stunts in his time, Sullivan hadn’t thought for one moment that he had actually sold his genes when he had thrown that up to their father in what amounted to their last argument. Sullivan had assumed that Derek only said it because family heritage and image had always been important to their father. It was easy enough to believe that, like everything else, he’d said what he had only to annoy the old man.

But Derek had not only done it, he had put Sullivan’s name to it, compounding the embarrassment.

Pocketing the letter, Sullivan had lost no time in locating the sperm bank. He’d gone there, determined to pay whatever amount that it took to undo Derek’s reckless folly.

Now it looked as if he’d arrived too late. He stared unseeingly at a commemorative plaque on the wall behind the woman.

Well, it looks like you’ve really gone and done it this time, Derek. You finally made a mess that’s impossible for me to clean up.

The technician touched his arm hesitantly. “Are you all right? I mean, that is why you donated the sperm, isn’t it? So it could be used?”

Sullivan thought of saying that he hadn’t donated any part of himself to this high-tech, antiseptic recycling institute, that it was his brother who had done it and then, to add insult to injury, or perhaps to give vent to some macabre sense of humor, signed his name to the form.

But that would be making a stranger privy to his own inner turmoil and the tensions that existed within his family. That just wasn’t Sullivan’s style. He had always handled his brother’s transgressions with a minimum of fanfare.

Sullivan searched for patience. Somehow the situation had to be salvaged, no matter what sort of damage control he had to exercise. There had to be a way.

“That’s just it. I’ve changed my mind. I want to buy it back.” He paused significantly. Maybe she’d made a mistake and confused his file with someone else’s. “At any cost.”

The woman keyed in something on the computer. A moment later she shook her head, looking sincerely regretful. “According to my records, your…”

Raising her eyes to his, Martha blushed, then flustered, began again. “It was implanted March twenty-fifth.” Her fingers slipped from the keyboard. “I’m afraid that it really is too late.”

Yes, it certainly is.

Sullivan scrubbed his hand over his face, wondering how many paramedics it would take to revive his father once Oliver Travis learned the extent of his oldest son’s latest sin. Since he had suffered a stroke last year, his father had become a shadow of the man he had once been, bound to a wheelchair and the past. Sullivan sighed. Dead and gone, and Derek was still getting back at the family.

Nice work, Derek.

Sullivan looked at the technician, his expression softening. It wasn’t her fault that the Travis family had given birth to a black sheep. “All right, who was the recipient?”

The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid I really can’t tell you that. It’s against our confidentiality policy.”

He could appreciate her dilemma, but he had a larger one to consider. There was still such a thing as family honor, even in this day and age. And obligations. “I realize that there are rules and regulations—”

She looked at him apologetically. Her hands were tied. Sullivan took out his wallet, his eyes on hers.

“Very strict rules and regulations,” she breathed watching him absently sort through a large wad of bills.

He nodded. “But these are extenuating circumstances, and—”

Her eyes were glued to the hundred dollar bill Sullivan carefully laid out on her desk. She wavered, then looked around to see if anyone was within eyeshot. They were alone, but that didn’t seem to put her at ease.

She chewed on her lower lip. “It would mean my job if I showed you.”

He added a second hundred to the first, carefully flattening a curled edge. “I’m not asking you to show me the name,” he assured her. His eyes shifted to the computer. “You could, however, pull up the right screen, and then perhaps…”

He glanced around the room as if he were searching for the right word. He did it for effect. Words had never been a problem for Sullivan. He always knew exactly what he was going to say, exactly what he needed to do. His life had been mapped out for him at an early age by a father who had been filled with great dreams. Dreams that had flourished. The Travis Corporation was the leading land development company in the state. A fourth-generation family business, it had risen to the top of its field due largely to his father’s efforts in the early years. He ran it now. The mantle Sullivan wore had been intended for Derek’s shoulders, but Derek had refused even to try it on.

“Drop your pencil on the floor,” he finally suggested. “If it rolled under the desk, it might take you a few seconds to locate it.”

He discreetly moved the hundred dollar bills toward her, separating them from his fingers as if they had never been there at all.

The woman stared at the bills, tempted. Debating. The debate was summarily terminated when a third bill joined the first two.

She moved her swivel chair around and typed out a few words on the keyboard. The keys clicked quickly, accentuated by the sound of her agitated breathing.

On the monitor, screens blinked, scrolled and finally came to a halt at the right one. She glanced around once more. There was no one passing by her office. It was now or never. Eyes hooded, Martha leaned an elbow on her desk and sent a pen tumbling to the carpet.

This was one woman who would never qualify for high-tech espionage, Sullivan thought with a grim smile. He leaned forward, tucking the three bills under the corner of the woman’s blotter as he scanned the screen.

Within moments he had a name, an address and a telephone number, as well as a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Marlene Bailey, whoever she was, was now carrying his brother’s child. If the offspring turned out anything like its father, Sullivan could almost feel sorry for the faceless Marlene.

The feeling passed quickly, though, replaced by annoyance. Annoyance at his brother, at the burden now placed on him, and at Marlene Bailey. What kind of woman went to a sperm bank to get impregnated, anyway? It sounded so cold, so calculating. Like ordering a child from a menu.

Maybe that would make his job easier in the long run.

Marlene Bailey’s personality and peculiarities were not his concern, he reminded himself. The Travis name, and his father’s health, were. The sooner he got this cleared up, the better.

Martha, her runaway pen in her hand, sat up and nervously looked at Sullivan. With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, he rose.

“Thank you, Ms.—” Sullivan glanced down at the name-plate on the woman’s desk “—Riley. You’ve been a great help.”

Her sweaty palm curved over the bills, and she looked at him uncertainly. “You won’t tell…?”

“Tell what?” he asked, the soul of innocence. “As far as I’m concerned, you were the unshakable pinnacle of integrity.”

With that he walked out of the office. He heard her sigh of relief in the background.

Too many people could be bought, he thought, as he hurried out of the building. The fact saddened him even though it did make his life easier. At times it seemed as if there was no honor left in the world, no principles. But then, he supposed, that was a given.

What was also a given, he decided as he got into his car, was that he intended to have Ms. Marlene Bailey sign over custody of her unborn child.

There was no other option open to him. His brother’s death last month had hit his father very hard. It had sent the already infirm man into a spiraling depression. Having a grandchild, Derek’s child, around might help fill the gaping hole he was carrying around in his heart.

At least he could hope that it might, Sullivan thought. Besides, he’d been taught that family always came first. He only wished that Derek had remembered that once in a while.

No use dwelling on what was in the past, he told himself, pulling out of the lot. He needed to concentrate on the present. The child would be a Travis, entitled to everything that went with the name.

He wondered just how much Marlene Bailey would hold out for before caving in.

Sally clutched her chest, her spidery fingers spread over her heart. Her crepe soles squeaked as she took a step back on the gray-and-white glazed tile in the foyer. Squinting, she looked up at the person she had known for thirty years, acting as if she didn’t recognize her.

“My God, you’re home, and it’s not even dark out yet. Did the office burn down?” The biting sarcasm abated as her expression suddenly grew serious, making her withered cheeks sink in even further. “Or are you…?” Her eyes darted to the pronounced outline of Marlene’s abdomen.

“No, I am not.” Mimicking Sally, Marlene deliberately left the end of the sentence hanging. “I’m home because I’m meeting someone here.”

Sally closed the door and followed Marlene into the living room. She moved very quickly for a woman who only shuffled. “A man?”

Marlene ignored the incredulous yet hopeful note in her housekeeper’s voice. “Yes.”

Sally sniffed, as if to hide what Marlene knew was her secret wish that Marlene would find someone to settle down with, someone who could finally take care of her the way she deserved to be cared for. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger, as Sally frequently told her.

Sally stared at Marlene’s protruding silhouette. “Should have thought of that before—”

Obviously Sally wasn’t going to give this up until she told her. “No romantic assignations, Sally. I’m expecting a private investigator.”

Sally’s brows knit together in a wiggly line of confusion. “What do you need a private investigator for?”

Marlene knew that it would never occur to Sally that the answer to that question was none of her business. Sally had been in the family’s employ since before Marlene was born, and had become even more integral in their lives after Marlene’s mother had walked out on them. For years Sally had been the only maternal influence she and her sister Nicole had had in their lives. She was their buffer against James Bailey’s paternal demands. If the woman was a little rough around the edges, that could be forgiven. After all, love didn’t always come neatly packaged in shiny gold foil.

“I’ve decided to try to find out who the baby’s father is.”

Marlene placed a protective hand over her belly, the way she did each time she and Sally discussed the baby. Sally had very vocally disapproved of her method of entering into the state of motherhood, but then, Sally hadn’t been the one to experience the yearnings that insistently battered her.

Her father’s untimely death thirteen months before had caused Marlene to stop and take stock of her life. At a juncture where most women already had families, Marlene stood barren and alone. The life she had was meaningless unless there was someone to be shaping her legacy for. Unless there was someone to come home to. But since she’d never had time for relationships, that left her decidedly short of one would-be father.

Never one to hang back and leave things to fate, Marlene had taken matters into her own hands. She had remedied the situation the best way she knew how. And she had no regrets.

Sally’s frown deepened. “You would have known that if you had gone about it the way God had intended you to.”

Marlene sighed. She felt especially tired today. She’d pushed hard to wrap up an ad campaign before taking the rest of the day off. When she had originally made up her mind to become pregnant, she had sworn to herself that she wasn’t going to let her condition slow her down or change her life beyond weight gain and the sweet satisfaction of knowing she was carrying another life within her body. Pregnancy, like everything else, became a challenge for her to overcome. Each day was business as usual.

To that end, she made certain that her makeup was meticulously applied each morning without fail. And she still wore the same three-inch heels she had always favored. God, in his infinite kindness, hadn’t sent down an onslaught of varicose veins to plague her or puffy ankles to slow her down.

The only plague she had to deal with was on the home front: Sally and her disapproval.

“We’ve been through this, Sally. That’s all behind us,” she said patiently.

The smirk took years off Sally’s age. “No, that’s all in front of us, especially you.”

Marlene raised an eyebrow and simultaneously lowered her voice. “Sally—”

The housekeeper threw up her hands, not so much in surrender as in disgust. Marlene knew just what she was thinking. If only the girls had had a normal upbringing, Marlene would have a husband in the picture by now. And Nicole wouldn’t have run off with that worthless bum.

“I know, I know, butt out.” A smile that would have made the Mona Lisa envious graced the old woman’s thin lips. “You should be so lucky.” Sally cocked her head, studying Marlene, reminding her of a gray-haired sparrow. “What brought this on? I thought you told Nicole that it didn’t matter to you who the baby’s father was?”

That had been true in the beginning, Marlene acknowledged. But curiosity had nibbled at her incessantly until it had worn a hole right through her. Besides, there were other reasons to know.

“It doesn’t,” Marlene insisted. “But someday my baby might want to know who its father is. I want to be able to offer a name, a history. A picture. He—or she—deserves that.”

Sally snorted. “You don’t deliberately start out being a one-parent family if you can help it. That baby deserves a father who isn’t just a resumé or an eight by ten glossy.”

With anyone else, Marlene would have been defensive. But Sally knew the story. She’d been there as it was unfolding.

“I never have the time to meet anyone, Sally. You know that.”

“You would have if you hadn’t spent all your time trying to please your father.” She shook her head, remembering. “Sooner get blood from a stone than win that man’s respect and affection.”

Marlene sank down in the wing chair, the firmest one in the room. She was bone weary and didn’t have the stamina to go into this now. Whatever James Bailey had been didn’t change the fact that he was her father and that she loved him.

“If you felt that way about him, why did you work for him all those years?”

“Same reason I’m still here. You. And your sister, when she lived here. I figured that you two needed someone in your corner, and that I’d do until someone better came along.”

Touched, Marlene rose and kissed her wrinkled cheek. “No one better than you will ever come along.”

Sally shrugged self-consciously. Having worked for James Bailey all these years, she had little experience dealing with praise. She shuffled out of the room. There was still dinner to deal with.

“Don’t think that means you’re getting out of buying me a Christmas present,” Sally huffed over her narrow shoulder.

Marlene laughed. Sally was one of a kind. Probably by popular demand. “I’ve got it picked out already,” she called after the woman.

Sally stopped in the doorway and turned toward Marlene. Maternal concern softened the harsher contours of her thin face. “Can I get you anything? Tea? Sandwich?”

Marlene shook her head. “I’m fine, Sally.”

Sally smiled to herself. “Yeah, I guess you are at that,” she murmured under her breath.

The doorbell rang just as she was about to disappear into the kitchen. With a sigh, she turned on her heel.

Marlene glanced at her watch. The private investigator was early, though not by much.

He had said that he might be late because of the traffic. The infamous El Toro Y, located south of her home, tended to knot up between the hours of three-thirty and seven. Since he had to come from that general direction, he’d obviously allotted extra time.

Or maybe all the holiday shoppers were out at the malls and not on the freeway today, she mused. She waved Sally back to the kitchen.

“Don’t bother. I’ll get it,” she told her as she passed Sally on the way to the door.

Bony shoulders rose and fell. “Suit yourself. My pay’s the same whether I answer doors or not.” Sally moved back toward the kitchen, then stopped, hovering on the threshold between the two rooms as Marlene opened the front door.

He wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting, Marlene thought. As far as she knew, detectives weren’t supposed to arrive wearing expensive three-piece suits, but then, she thought ruefully, she’d been raised on TV detectives. Endearingly mussed PI’s who were filled with snappy patter and caught their man, half the time by accident, before the last commercial aired.

Marlene put out her hand. “Hello, I’m Marlene Bailey. You’re early.”

As if in a trance, Sullivan took her hand. Whatever he’d been going to say flew out of his head. Her words had caught him completely off guard.

As did her appearance. She was the most pregnant woman he had ever seen. At least, the most pregnant woman he had ever seen from such a close vantage point. But that wasn’t what had words curling up on his tongue. The woman was gorgeous.

Not only that, but she had class written all over her, from her tilted cleft chin to her tailored, pale blue suit. It was the kind of class that came from bloodlines, from pampering and from never having to worry about paying bills, no matter how large they were.

Why would a beautiful woman have to resort to a sperm bank in order to conceive a child?

“I am?” he finally said, mystified by her reaction. How could she have been expecting him?

Unless, he suddenly realized, the woman at the Institute had had a change of heart and called her, warning her that he was coming.

Marlene had made up her mind not to feel awkward about this. All the way home from the office, she had rehearsed what she was going to say to the investigator. Though she suspected that her request did not exactly run along the lines of the mundane, she was certain that he probably dealt with a great many strange requests. And successfully, if his clothes were any reflection of his track record.

She glanced expectantly over her shoulder at Sally. Muttering, the older woman withdrew. Marlene led the man into her living room.

“Yes, I didn’t expect you for a while.”

She did know, he thought. The Riley woman must have told her he was coming. Dollar signs were probably dancing in her head.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at the woman before him. Unaccountable disappointment washed over him. He’d thought himself securely jaded by now, but this situation generated a really bad taste in his mouth. She looked honest, genuine and, despite her very obvious condition, pure. So much for first impressions.

“Then this isn’t a surprise?” he asked darkly.

He was acting very odd, Marlene thought. “No, why should it be?” she asked. She gestured toward the sofa. The entire room was done in light pastels, complementing the airy effect created by the cathedral ceilings.

Following her lead, Sullivan sat down, waiting for her to continue.

They hadn’t talked about his fee on the telephone, and she thought it best to get that out of the way first. “Perhaps we should get the financial end of things cleared up first. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that you would find to your liking.”

She knew who he was, all right, he thought. The woman had nerve, he would give her that. She didn’t look like an operator, but then, maybe that was how she had acquired this house to begin with. You just never knew.

“To my liking,” he repeated.

Every word tasted like acid on his tongue. If his brother hadn’t already been dead, he would have wrung Derek’s neck for putting him through this. It was beyond him how he could have ever worshiped Derek when they were both younger, how he had actually envied him his freedom. It was only later that he had recognized that desire for freedom for what it was. Pure, selfish recklessness.

Marlene was beginning to have second thoughts about hiring this man. Maybe she should have researched his credentials a little more thoroughly. He really was behaving very oddly.

“Well, yes,” she said slowly. “It’s only fair that we both get something from this arrangement.”

He leaned back, his arms crossed before him. “And just what do you expect out of this arrangement, Ms. Bailey?”

Was he kidding? “I expect you to deliver, of course.”

She was referring to the money. Didn’t waste any time, did she? Sullivan pressed his lips together grimly. “Of course.”

She had the definite impression that he was mocking her. The man had to be doing very well indeed to be so high-handed. Still, he did have an impressive track record, according to one of the VPs at her company.

“I mean, I realize that these things can’t be guaranteed, but you do have a reputation.”

Now they were getting down to it. “Yes, I do.”

Why was he scowling at her like that? He was a very handsome man, but he looked like Zeus about to unleash a thunderbolt on a group of mortals who had displeased him.

She squared her shoulders. “And I assume that there is some amount of truth in it.”

He nodded, prepared to concede very little. “To a degree.”

He was being awfully cagey. She wondered if this was his normal mode of operation, or if the fact that she was the head of a very successful ad agency had something to do with it. “Why don’t you give me a price, and then I’ll tell you what I think of it?”

He wanted to tell her exactly what he thought of her, but he managed to maintain his control.

“Why don’t you start the bidding?” he suggested genially, but his smile fell short of his eyes.

“Bidding?” Marlene repeated. What was he talking about? Didn’t he have set rates? She was beginning to smell a setup. Her doubts about him continued to escalate.

But he was here, and she might as well see this thing through. “All right, how does a hundred dollars a day sound?”

Was she serious? Did she really intend to sell her child for a daily fee? Just what kind of a monster was she?

“A hundred dollars a day,” he repeated grimly.

Was that too little? It would help if he gave her some kind of a ballpark figure to work with. “Plus expenses.”

“Expenses?” This was getting worse and worse. Just how long did she intend to bilk them? “And for how long?”

Boy, talk about wanting to play a good thing out. “As long as it takes.” Her eyes narrowed. “Within reason, of course.”

“Reason?” He’d heard of unmitigated gall, but the worst offender he had dealt with was a humble saint in comparison to her. The burden of years of cleaning up after Derek finally took its toll, and he shouted, “I don’t think the word reason has anything to do with this.”

He had completely lost her. She had no idea what he was talking about, or why he had suddenly raised his voice to her, but she wasn’t about to take it.

“Why are you yelling?” she shouted back at him.

It was completely out of character for him. Generally he was the calm within the stormy family. Sullivan paused, but he couldn’t regain the control he sought. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I always yell when someone is trying to sell me a baby.”

Marlene’s lips formed a perfect circle as her eyes grew wide. She stared at him, utterly speechless for what was possibly the first time in her life.