A Baby for Dry Creek and A Dry Creek Christmas: A Baby for Dry Creek

“She doesn’t need to move to Boston.” The attorney set the cup of coffee on his own desk. “Fortunately, the school is a live-in situation. Twenty-four-hour care and mental stimulation. The baby will grow up to be a genius.”

Reno grunted. “Even a genius needs a home.”

The attorney took a sip of coffee. “The Bards own a house in San Marino and another in Vail. The boy won’t lack for a place to visit during his school breaks. And there’ll be adequate supervisory care.”

Reno didn’t like the sound of this. What kind of grandmother was this woman? “It takes more than a house to make a home. Isn’t Mrs. Bard going to bake him cookies?”

The lawyer laughed. “Mrs. Bard doesn’t bake anything. She’s a very busy woman.”

“Too busy for a little boy?”

“Don’t worry. Mrs. Bard is hoping to make the boy her heir. That should tell you how she feels. Her only concern is that the baby is Jared’s son. That’s why she hired our firm. She’s paying us a handsome bonus if the baby is Jared’s son, so of course, we’re hoping it is.”

The lawyer started to lift the cup again.

“How much of a bonus?” Reno asked.

The attorney stopped with his cup halfway up in the air and looked at Reno. “You certainly ask a lot of questions. Why are you so worried about this baby, if you’ve never even seen him?”

Reno smiled slightly. He could see the lawyer was beginning to think that Reno might really be the father of Chrissy’s baby. It was the first time in the conversation that the question had even seemed to arise. “Let’s just say I want to make sure everyone is happy.”

The lawyer studied the cup he held in his hand. “I see. Well, I can assure you Mrs. Bard will want to share her happiness with everyone if we prove to her the baby is Jared’s son. So if she’s happy, we’re happy. Of course—” he paused “—if someone else had reason to believe he could be the baby’s father, we would want to make him happy, too.”

“You’d pay me off?”

The lawyer shrugged. “I didn’t say that, now, did I? I’m just pointing out that there’s no way to really prove who the father is without a blood test, and Miss Hamilton refuses to agree to that. I’m afraid Chrissy is both stubborn and foolish. She refused to list Jared on the birth certificate or even to say he’s the father, so she can’t press for child support. At her age, with only a high school education, she’ll never be able to support the baby herself, not working as a waitress like she does.”

“But—” Reno started to protest.

The lawyer waved his hand. “Oh, I have to admit she’s a gutsy young woman. She bounced back real fast when she lost her last two jobs. But how much longer can she move from job to job? It might be okay now that she’s living in her mother’s house, but how long will that last? She won’t find a decent place to rent in Los Angeles on her salary. And that’s just now. She’ll certainly never be able to afford private schools and college. We’re really doing her a favor to help her recognize that the baby is better off with Mrs. Bard. It’ll save Miss Hamilton years of hard work and heartache. Mrs. Bard is even willing to pay her enough so that she can go to college herself and make something of her life.”

“She has made something of her life.” Reno stood up to leave. “She has the baby to prove it.”

Reno left the lawyer’s office with a sour taste in his mouth and drove to the west side of Los Angeles. The lawyer had at least confirmed Chrissy’s current address. After Reno knocked at the house’s door and no one answered, he went back to the car to wait. It was hard to get comfortable in the compact space of Mrs. Hargrove’s car, but he managed. His waiting had turned to napping when the sirens penetrated his sleep.

Reno saw the woman open her door and wave a baseball bat at him at the same time that the police cars came around all the street corners and headed straight for him.

Reno woke up all the way. People in Los Angeles sure knew how to get a man’s attention.

“Come out of your car with your hands up,” the loudspeaker on top of one police car blared out as the cars pulled to a halt and turned off their sirens.

Reno counted four police cars blocking him in.

Reno hadn’t trained a half-wolf dog without learning when to move easy. He put his hands up in plain view and nudged the car door open with his elbow. He couldn’t even guess what law he’d broken. Maybe people didn’t park in front of houses in Los Angeles, especially not in rusted-out cars with red plastic balls on their antennas. Mrs. Hargrove had put the red ball on the antenna one winter when the snow was particularly high, and she hadn’t bothered to take it off.

“I can move the car if you want,” Reno called out as he shouldered the door open and stepped out. “And that red ball, it’s just a plastic thing from some gas station.”

“Keep your hands where we can see them,” the voice on the loudspeaker demanded. Apparently the police in Los Angeles took their parking tickets seriously.

Chrissy’s heart stopped when she saw the police cars parked in front of her place. Four cars! Whoever was in that car must have tried to take Justin. That was the only thing that would make them send four cars. She knew Mrs. Bard had hired an attorney to try to take Justin away from her, and Chrissy had begun to wonder if Jared’s mother would try kidnapping the baby if she got frustrated enough.

Chrissy knew Mrs. Bard could offer her baby all of the advantages money could buy. Sometimes Chrissy felt selfish for even refusing to consider the woman’s offer—until she remembered that Jared had had those same advantages, and look how unhappy his childhood had been.

Chrissy pulled her car up behind a police car and got out to rap on its window.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

The policeman inside looked up from the report he was writing and rolled down the window. “What do you think you’re doing? Keep your head down. He could be armed. Get back to your car and wait.”

Chrissy saw the police put handcuffs on some man standing beside an old car. They were all on Mrs. Velarde’s lawn. Chrissy could see only the back of the man the police had cuffed. It wasn’t Jared, but the man did look familiar. Mrs. Bard must have hired one of Jared’s friends.

“I’m not going back. My son’s inside that house.” Chrissy pointed to the house where Mrs. Velarde lived. Chrissy thought she could hear Justin’s cry from here. She was glad to see that the baby-sitter had drawn the drapes to the house.

As Chrissy checked the house she saw Mrs. Velarde standing on the porch with the baseball bat in her hand. She had a housedress on, and her hair was in curlers.

“Go back inside!” Chrissy shouted.

Even though she was watching Mrs. Velarde on the porch, Chrissy also saw the man who was being handcuffed turn at the sound of her shout and look over at her. It was enough to make her eyes turn from the sitter.

Oh, no! Chrissy looked at the man in astonishment. He had a cap on his head that hid his face from the sun, but she didn’t need to see his face to know the man who stood there was the last man on earth she wanted to see. Or, rather, it was the last man who would want to see her.

She hadn’t realized until she’d been seeing her physician for a while that spurts of idiotic tears were perfectly normal for a pregnant woman. She’d never cried before in her life, but when she was pregnant, she’d cried over everything, even dinner invitations from handsome men that she couldn’t accept.

“What’s he doing here?” Chrissy whispered.

“Dealing drugs, we think,” the policeman answered from inside the car. “Or maybe just using them. We don’t know.”

“Reno Redfern?”

The policeman nodded. “That’s what he said his name is. I’m running his plates now to check it out. Do you know him?”

Ten minutes later Chrissy poured Reno a cup of coffee in Mrs. Velarde’s kitchen.

“I’m so sorry,” the baby-sitter repeated as she wiped her hands on her apron. There were open cardboard boxes sitting in the kitchen with pots and pans in them.

“It’s my fault,” Chrissy said. “If I hadn’t been so paranoid about Jared showing up, I wouldn’t have kept asking Mrs. Velarde to keep an eye out for a man on drugs.”

Chrissy tried to ignore the boxes. What was she going to do with Justin when Mrs. Velarde moved to Florida?

“Well, I guess most people don’t park in front of your house and then go to sleep,” Reno offered.

“I thought you were out on some overdose,” Mrs. Velarde admitted as she drew a circle around her head with her finger to signify “crazy.”

Reno took another gulp of his coffee. “No harm done. I’m glad you’re suspicious of strange men hanging around.” He turned to Chrissy. “I don’t know if you’re aware that Jared’s mother has hired a lawyer to investigate you.”

Chrissy nodded miserably. “Don’t tell me she sent someone to Dry Creek, too.”

Dry Creek was the one place that she’d felt was beyond Mrs. Bard’s reach. Not a day had gone by since Chrissy left Dry Creek that she hadn’t thought about that little town. She’d go to sleep at night with the picture of it in her mind. She’d even made up a little lullaby about the town that she sang to Justin.