Stroke of Fortune

Harvey sputtered some at the sight of the baby. Then Flynt questioned him on the subject of baby things—like diapers and wipes, formula and maybe even a diaper bag. Harvey replied that yes, they had those things on hand, just in case a guest might need them.

“Then, go get them. And make it fast. And arrange to have my pickup brought around to the service entrance off the Empire Room. I want it ready there, engine running, in ten minutes. I don’t want to go out the front, understand? And I want you and that maid I sent after you to keep your mouths shut about this little girl.”

“Well, of course we will, Flynt. You can count on our absolute discretion in this matter and we—”

“Great. Go.”

It took Harvey eleven minutes and thirty-four seconds to return with the damn diaper bag. By then Lena was hardly bothering to breathe between angry sobs. The manager’s office had a small bar area, complete with granite counter, stainless steel sink and microwave. Flynt sent Harvey over there to deal with getting the bottle ready, while he took on the diapering job. It wasn’t the best time he’d ever had, but he managed it. Harvey rose to the occasion, too, figuring out how to fill the plastic bag inside the bottle and warming it up without getting it too hot.

Then there was the feeding to accomplish. Obviously the kid had clear plumbing, because she needed another diaper change right after she ate. After he took care of that, Flynt finally felt it was safe to head for the ranch.

He was reasonably certain no one saw him going down to the service entrance door. As for the driver who brought his vehicle around from the parking lot, he gave the man a twenty and told him to go straight to Harvey. Harvey would make it painfully clear that talking about how Mr. Carson had slipped out the back with a baby would be a bad move for anyone hoping to hold on to his job.

Lena slept the whole way home. Flynt had an extended cab on his pickup, so he’d put her in the back seat, facing the rear as the diagrams on the side of the car seat had indicated. He kept craning his head over his shoulder, to check on her. She looked so damn sweet, her head drooping to the side, those soft black curls shiny as silk against her plump cheek.

He called the ranch on the way. When the housekeeper answered, he asked for his mother, Grace. Luck was with him. She was home.

“Flynt? What is it?”

“Ma, I need your help.”

“Has something happened?” He heard the worry in her voice. He hadn’t had a drink in over a year, but still, she was his mother and a mother will always worry. “Are you—”

“I’m fine, Ma. Sober as a temperance worker. Would you do me a favor?”

“I don’t underst—”

“I’ll explain it all as soon as I get there, which should be in about ten minutes.”

“Oh, Flynt. Are you sure that you—”

“Ma. Can I count on you?”

A pause, then, “You know you don’t really need to ask.”

He smiled. “Great. Gotta go.”

She was waiting for him on the front porch, a plump, pretty woman in her Sunday best, with chin-length graying blond hair and kind, rather worried blue eyes. She hurried down the wide stone steps and reached the passenger door of his pickup almost before he’d pulled to a stop in the half-moon driveway that curved in front of the house. She didn’t say a word as he got out and went to free Lena’s carrier from the back seat. He left his pickup right there in front and they went inside, Grace bustling ahead, Flynt following with Lena and all the baby gear.

Flynt had his own wing. They headed straight for it, managing by some minor miracle not to run into any of the household staff or the family on the way. When they reached Flynt’s private sitting room, his mother ushered him through. Shutting the door, she turned to him.

She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. He saw what she was thinking in her eyes.

Flynt was thirty-four years old, had been more or less in charge of the business end of the ranch for years now. He also managed the various Carson holdings, which included oil interests, investments in local citrus groves and some lucrative properties on the Gulf Coast. He’d been to war, been married and widowed, fought a battle with the bottle that, at this point anyway, he appeared to be winning. But when Grace Carson gave him the kind of look she gave him right then, he still felt like an ill-behaved ten-year-old boy.

He set Lena, still sound asleep in the car seat, carefully on the Oriental rug at his feet, dropped the diaper bag on the coffee table and tried a crooked smile. “I guess you were all ready to head to church, huh, Ma?”

She went on staring him down for a good twenty seconds. Then, at last, she spoke. “The Lord will have to wait this Sunday. But that’s all right. He has infinite patience. I don’t. What’s going on?”

Flynt told his mother the truth—or at least, most of it. About finding Lena on the golf course, about the water-smeared note pinned to her blanket.

Grace went straight for the heart of the matter. “You believe you could be the father, is that it?”

He confessed, “It’s possible, Ma.”

“Well, all right. If you’re the father, who’s the mother?”

He’d expected that question. Still, it didn’t make it any easier to answer.

Grace knew Josie Lavender, had been very fond of her. Josie had come to them four years ago, when she was just nineteen, to work as a maid. But she hadn’t stayed a maid. Within a year, due to her willingness to apply herself, her good organizational skills and great attitude, she’d become their housekeeper. Grace—along with the rest of the family—had counted on her, grown to like her and respect her. Then, last year, Josie had left them, without notice, seemingly right out of the blue.

Grace still resented her for taking off like that. Flynt had tried to smooth things over, telling his mother it was “family problems” that had forced their formerly dependable housekeeper to vanish from their lives. The vague explanation hadn’t satisfied Grace. Flynt hated that his mother thought less of Josie for something that was actually his fault. But he knew if he gave his mother the real facts behind Josie’s sudden departure, it would only make things worse.

So he kept quiet—and despised himself for it.

“Flynt, I asked you who that baby’s mother is.”

“I can’t say for certain, not at this point.”

“Well, fine. Then who do you think that baby’s mother is?”

“Ma, I’ve told you all I can right now. I need you to help me look after this baby, and I need you to keep what I’ve said quiet. Will you do those things for me?”

Grace looked tired all of a sudden. And old.

“Just give it to me straight, Ma. Will you help me or not?”

“Oh, Flynt. You know very well you don’t even need to ask.”

Grace took on baby-sitting duties when Detective Hart O’Brien, a friend of Spence’s, showed up from the Mission Creek Police Department about an hour later. Hart had already interviewed Spence, and Spence had turned over the water-splotched note. At the ranch, Hart took Flynt’s statement and then asked him why he thought the abandoned child should remain in his care.

Flynt admitted he thought Lena might be his.

Detective O’Brien asked the same thing Grace had. “If you think you’re the father, then who do you believe is the baby’s mother?”

And Flynt set about hedging an answer. “Look, I’ll be honest. I’m not certain I’m the father. And I don’t want to bring any trouble on an innocent woman. First, I’ll need to find out if Lena is mine. If she is, then no harm has been done. She’s only gone from one parent to the other. If Lena’s not mine…well then, it’s no one’s business who I spend my time with, now is it?”

It was a lot of fast talk and Flynt could see in Hart’s eyes that the detective knew it. But his reply gave Flynt hope. “All right. It’s obvious the baby is in good hands here. Spence said he was contacting CPS—Child Protective Services. And the sheriff’s office, too.”

“Yeah.” Flynt regarded the other man warily. “That’s the plan.”

“Representatives from both agencies should be here soon, then.”

“Right.”

“So I’ll just hang around and see what the social worker has to say about the situation.”

A thin, soft-spoken woman from CPS appeared about five minutes later. She handed Flynt a business card. “I’m Eliza Guzman. I’ll be baby Lena’s caseworker.”