Daddy By Design?: Daddy By Design? / Her Perfect Wife

Trey focused on the wall-mounted phone next to the calendar and simply stared at it. He admitted to himself now that one of the reasons he hadn’t called her yet was that if he didn’t, she couldn’t reject him. And if she couldn’t reject him, then he wasn’t out of her life. Oh hell, man, that’s stupid. She couldn’t be more out of your life than she is right now this minute. You don’t see her or talk to her. She probably doesn’t even think about you anymore.

Great. So he was going to reject himself before he even gave her a chance to do it. This was messed up. He was a thirty-year-old man who was experienced with women. So act like it, he told himself. Trey reached for the phone but caught himself. The guys he worked with would just love this conversation, wouldn’t they? Trey lowered his hand. Forget it. If he was going to put his heart and pride on the line, then he’d do it from the privacy of his own home. That way, if she said no, he could immediately go drown himself in his shower.

That sounded like a plan. Trey folded the note Cinda had given him and stuck it back in his wallet. He’d call her later.

4

FRESHLY BATHED and clad in her nightgown and robe, Cinda sat curled up on the sofa in the family room. The large-screen TV was turned off, and the built-in stereo system softly played jazz in the background. Cinda was tired but it was too early in the evening to go to bed. She’d already nursed and rocked Chelsi to sleep and this was Major Clovis’s and Marta’s night out. So Cinda essentially had the place to herself.

She loved moments like this. Yet she also hated them. They were too quiet, too ripe for reflection. Her mind insisted on wandering from the book she’d picked up, to center itself on Trey Cooper. She supposed it was only natural. After all, he’d been a major player in a really big moment in her life, the birth of her daughter. Oh, nice try, Cinda. It was more than that and you know it. Much more. Okay, so there had been attraction. She hadn’t imagined that. Something chemical had happened between them. He’d made quite the impression on her senses. A lingering impression.

Feeling all dreamy, like a lovesick teenager, Cinda allowed her hardcover mystery to flop onto her lap as she gave in to thoughts of Trey Cooper. Such a handsome, virile man. Cinda sat up, hearing herself and looking around guiltily. What am I thinking? Here I am a widow with a six-month-old baby acting as if I have my first crush. Now she was sounding like her mother-in-law. The woman would have a stroke if Cinda even thought of seeing someone, much less marrying anyone else. The Real Mrs. Cavanaugh, as Major Clovis called her because of her condescending airs, talked as if she believed Cinda should remain chaste in loving memory of Richard the Second.

Frowning, Cinda spared a moment for her complicated relationship with Ruth Cavanaugh. She supposed she loved the difficult woman, who could be over-bearing and opinionated. Okay, so she could be a battering ram. Most days, though, and on most issues, Cinda simply didn’t give in to her. In disagreements with Ruth, Cinda tried to remain firm but respectful. After all, Ruth was Chelsi’s grandmother, which meant she would always be a part of her life. And, Cinda knew Ruth had it hard. After all, she’d lost her only child.

Oh, Richard. Cinda’s eyes grew damp. She had loved him. Well, she’d tried to. But he wouldn’t allow it. He hadn’t wanted a wife, just a child, an heir. And now he was gone. But wasn’t life for the living? Cinda asked herself. She’d always heard that, and now she understood what it meant. She was alive. And so was Trey Cooper. In light of that, what was she supposed to do with all the hormones that still drove her, as well as the fifty or so years of life still ahead of her? Just sit here and vegetate? She didn’t think so.

So why didn’t she just get over it and call Trey Cooper? Where was the harm? Women called men all the time now. She had, before she’d met Richard. In fact, that was how she’d met Richard. She’d called him. Okay, so she’d been a reporter assigned to do a story on him. But still, she’d made the first move. And that had worked out well, hadn’t it? For a while, anyway. It had certainly worked out better for her than it had for Richard. Poor Richard. He got the yaks, and she got Chelsi.

Just then, the phone rang, shattering the silence. Nearly jumping out of her skin, Cinda tossed her book aside and scrambled up onto her knees. Reaching over the back of the sofa, she plucked up the cordless hand-set from atop the long narrow table that reposed there. A quick check of the caller ID had her groaning as she sank back onto the plush cushions. Speak of the devil. Her in-laws’ name and number graced the tiny glowing screen. So why couldn’t she just be “not at home” and let the machine get it? Tempting. But no. Ever dutiful, Cinda depressed the talk button and put the phone to her ear.

“Hello, Mother Cavanaugh,” she said in a pleasant voice.

“Sorry to disappoint you, sweetie, but this is Grandpa Rick.”

Cinda’s mood instantly lifted. Richard’s father. She loved this man. “Papa Rick! How are you?” He hardly ever called. Couldn’t wrest the phone from his wife’s hands, no doubt.

“The Dragon Lady fell asleep in her lair, so I snatched up the phone when it rang an hour or so ago. And it’s lucky for you I did.”

“For me? Why? Is something wrong?”

“Only if you don’t like the young man who called for you.”

Cinda sat bolt upright on the sofa. Her pulse picked up. Anticipation flitted through her, drying her mouth. “A young man called for me?”

“He did. And like I said, it was a good thing I answered and not Ruth.”

“No kidding.” She and Papa Rick were in this conspiracy together to survive the Dragon Lady. “But why would the, uh, young man call you? You’re in the Hamptons. And I certainly haven’t given anybody your number there. This doesn’t make sense.”

“Cinda, slow down. All I know is he sounded Southern.”

“S-Southern?” Cinda could have kicked herself for that stutter in her voice. Thank God, Papa Rick couldn’t know how her heart was leaping right now. Only two days ago she’d been wishing every call was Trey’s. And now, just maybe, here it was.

“So,” she said, trying to play it cool, “Who was he? What’d he say? What’d he want? Why did he call you?”

Okay, so she blew the cool part.

Rick Cavanaugh chuckled in her ear. “My, don’t you sound eager.”

Cinda took a deep breath. She wasn’t certain yet that she wanted to confide in Papa Rick, or if she even should. After all, Richard had been his son, too. “Eager? No. Just curious is all. Like I said, I can’t imagine why anyone would call you looking for me.”

“It wasn’t exactly your young man who called—”

“I don’t have a young man.” Immediately, Cinda grimaced, rapping her forehead with her knuckles. She’d been too quick to protest.

“Of course you don’t.” Papa Rick’s voice remained friendly and teasing. “You should have one, you know, honey.”

Cinda was pleasantly taken aback. Papa Rick thought she should have a young man? That was enlightening.

“At any rate,” her father-in-law was saying, “our Miss Reeves—oh, you remember our Miss Reeves, don’t you?”

Cinda gave an indelicate snort. He may as well have asked her if she remembered the axe-wielding monster she’d felt certain had resided in her bedroom closet when she’d been a child. “Yes. Tall. Big hair. Humorless. The saint and scourge of social secretaries. The one everyone is afraid of. Well, except Major Clovis, who isn’t afraid of anyone. You mean that Miss Reeves?”

“Yes. Well, our Miss Reeves was at your apartment earlier this evening, making her rounds, as it were, checking on things—”

“She was? Why?”

“The Dragon Lady thought it would be a good thing to do.”

“I see.” So The Real Mrs. Cavanaugh had her spy snooping around in Cinda’s absence. There wasn’t much Cinda could say about it. The penthouse was in the elder Cavanaughs’ names. “So what did she find?”

“A blinking phone message, actually. From two days ago.”

“Two days ago?”

“According to the date and time on your voice mail.”

“Oh, I can’t believe this. I have been so lax about checking it up there. Every time I did, it seemed like there were no messages. And then I got busy here and just stopped thinking about it. I figured by now everyone knew I was in Atlanta.”

“Well, not everyone, I’d say.”

Suddenly it all made sense. Her caller was Southern and last January she’d given Trey Cooper her New York number. Despite her excitement, Cinda wanted to groan. Trey probably believed that she had no intention of returning his call. What must he think? Putting that aside for the moment she concentrated on Papa Rick. “Hey, have I told you lately that I love you?”

“No. I don’t think you have.”

Cinda grinned at the mock hurt in his voice. “I love you.”

“That’s nice to know. I love you, too.”

“Then it’s mutual.” Though warmed by his affection, Cinda worked to get them back on track. “All right, so your Miss Reeves took down this phone message for me and called to tell the Drag—I mean Mother Cavanaugh about it, but got you instead. So, what did you tell her to do?”

“You know it doesn’t work like that. Our Miss Reeves instructed me to call you to see if you know this man. Do you?”

Well, obviously, it wasn’t only in her home where control over the staff had long since been ceded. “I don’t know, Papa Rick. You haven’t told me who called.”

“Well, that makes it hard then, doesn’t it? Let’s see. It was…Oh, for the love of Mike. Where did it get to? Hold on. I seem to have misplaced the note.”

He’d lost the note. Cinda pitched over onto the sofa’s cushions while she listened to sounds of fumbling and searching at the other end. Please, God, let him find the—