The Baby Wore a Badge

About to shuffle off into the very same storeroom she was proposing to clean, Fowler stopped short and turned around to glare at her.

“No,” he all but shouted, then struggled to regain his monotone composure. “I already told you to stay out of there.”

He’d told her that the very first day she’d worked here. At the time she’d thought the edict was just fueled by his myriad of idiosyncrasies.

“I know, but I thought maybe you’d like to have me straighten things up in there, maybe do an inventory for you,” she proposed.

“Don’t need no inventory,” Fowler retorted. “I know everything that’s in there and where it is if I need to get at it. I don’t need some eager beaver messing things up with her own damn system that makes no sense to nobody on God’s green earth but her.”

He was really getting heated about it and she couldn’t help wondering why. She’d glanced into the storeroom once in passing and it was just a dark storage space as far as she could see.

“Okay, I won’t go in there,” she surrendered, at the same time trying to figure out just what it was that the old man was trying to protect. Most likely, it was nothing, but he certainly was behaving peculiarly—even more so than usual. Every time she mentioned the storeroom, he acted, in her opinion, as if she was trying to break into the U.S. Mint and he was its only defender.

But then, she reasoned, she’d known what the old man was like when she’d initially answered his want ad and interviewed for the job. Everyone in town—her family included—had warned her about going to work for “crazy ol’ Jasper Fowler.” And everyone from around the area knew about the legend.

Knew how, according to the legend, Fowler had once driven cross-country with a coffin rattling around in the back of his pickup truck. Moreover, the same legend claimed that there’d been a rotting corpse in that coffin, supposedly the remains of a woman who had once jilted him.

Over time other identities had been assigned to the so-called decaying cross-country traveler. Some said it was a business partner who had tried to cheat him out of the profits of their business. Others said that there were two bodies in there, his late wife and the infant son she’d given birth to minutes before both she and the baby had died.

That, at least, would explain his winning personality.

As for her, Calista figured that because the old man was so eccentric, Fowler invited these kinds of stories to be made up about him, maybe even reveled in them and that, ultimately, none of it was true.

Although, if it was true she supposed that might be a good reason why Fowler wouldn’t allow anyone but him to enter the storeroom. That might be where he was keeping the legendary coffin.

Stop it, she told herself. You’re smarter than that. There’s no coffin. It’s all just a bunch of fabrication about an odd old man.

She heard the front door open. The next second she heard the bell attached to it ring, announcing the entrance of another person into the store.

Having already walked into the storeroom, Fowler poked his head out to see who had come in. The etched-in frown on his stubble-laden face seemed to deepen as his small eyes focused on the woman who had just come into his shop.

Recognizing her, he challenged Erin Traub. “You here to buy anything today?”

Erin knew how to play the game. “I might be,” she answered evasively.

Fowler allowed a dismissive sound to escape his lips as he waved his hand at Erin’s words. “No, you ain’t. You got five minutes to talk to the girl and then you go,” he ordered. “And you,” he said, shifting his hawk-like intense gaze to Calista, “consider this your break, you hear?”

“Yes, sir,” Calista answered, inclining her head with a formal little bow, as if he was some small far-from-benevolent despot.

Uttering another dismissive noise, Fowler withdrew back into the storeroom.

Erin looked at the younger woman she’d come to see in disbelief. “How can you stand it, working for Old Man Fowler? He’s so rude.”

“I’ve had practice dealing with foul moods. When you’ve got seven siblings, there’s always someone who’s bound to be in a snit—or worse,” she added with a careless shrug. “And besides, it’s not exactly like I don’t need the money,” she confessed. At twenty-two, she’d just graduated, but that didn’t mean that all that struggling was behind her. A great deal of it was just up ahead. She was currently living at home to save as much money as she could, but it was still slow-going. “I’ve got school loans to pay off and other expenses to juggle as well. Right now, I can’t afford to be picky.” Besides, she added silently, afraid of being overheard, Fowler was harmless.

“Is that why you agreed to babysit for my brother?” Erin asked her.

She’d stopped by to get her friend’s take on working for her brother and to make sure that Calista didn’t decide to suddenly change her mind and tell Jake that she’d had second thoughts about agreeing to babysit for him. Dealing with an infant could be draining. Especially after having had to put up with a Neanderthal despot like Fowler.

“Oh no,” Calista said with feeling, “I’m more than happy to take the job. I think that Marlie’s really adorable.”

Erin laughed. She had fallen in love with her niece at first sight, but she had to admit that there were drawbacks. “For a child who never sleeps, she’s wonderful.” Erin raised her slender shoulders and then let them drop. “At least it feels that way. Our bedroom is just one door down from Jake’s room. I can hear him pacing the floor with her at all hours. That baby cries every night.”

“Well, yes, that’s not unusual. They do that for a while,” Calista assured her. “But that eventually changes and they sleep through the night. For the record, babies don’t learn to manipulate their parents until they’re a few years old.”

Erin sighed, wondering how she would measure up when the time came to have a baby of her own. Right now, it seemed almost daunting to even think about. “You sound a lot more knowledgeable about how to handle things than I am.”

Calista shrugged off the compliment. “I come from a really big family,” she pointed out. “Somewhere along the line, I started taking care of my younger brothers and sisters. Suddenly, I was the expert when it came to changing diapers, feeding and burping. The funny thing is, I don’t really mind, so I can’t complain. The truth of the matter is,” she freely admitted, “I kind of like it.”

“You don’t have to sell me,” Erin assured her with feeling. “I actually just stopped by to find out if there’s anything I can do to make the experience better for you.”

Several things popped up in her mind, none of which she could have ventured to say out loud. All of them concerned Jake Castro. The very thought of him made her feel warm, a reaction she did her best to stifle. It wasn’t something she could readily explain to the man’s sister.

Instead, she guessed at the reason behind Erin’s impromptu field trip to the antique shop, and her. “Don’t worry, Erin, I said I’d babysit and I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Good.” Erin released a large sigh, then immediately asked, “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

Calista hadn’t expected to be asked to babysit so soon. She looked at Jake’s sister in surprise.

“Tomorrow,” she repeated, thinking for a second. “I was just planning to do a little dry reading on government procedures so I don’t come across like some empty-headed little intern. I don’t want people to think that Cousin Bo’s guilty of nepotism, although technically, I suppose he is.” Their connection was distant, but they were still family. “Why? Is Jake going out tomorrow night? He didn’t mention anything to me about it during the interview.”

She would have assumed that he would have right after telling her that she had the job. Had something come up, or had he just held back for some reason of his own?

The smile that rose to Erin’s lips was a self-satisfied one. “That’s because my big brother doesn’t know he’s going out yet.”

“You’re having him kidnapped?” Calista guessed drily.

To her surprise, Erin answered the quip seriously. “In a manner of speaking. I want Corey and Jake to have a guys’ night out.”

She might not have a whole lot of experience beyond her academic one, but that struck Calista as rather unusual.

“You haven’t been married all that long,” she recalled, then marveled, “Boy, talk about an understanding wife.”

Amused, Erin set the other woman straight. “Don’t stick wings on me yet, Calista. There’s a reason for my shipping those two out of the house. I want a clear playing field so that I can help Corey’s sister get ready for her date.”

It was a small enough town to keep up on the various activities of the locals. Corey’s baby sister Rose was, like her brothers, a recent transplant to Thunder Canyon. As such, she didn’t know all that many people yet.

Calista greeted the news with surprise. “I didn’t know that Rose was dating.”

Even though they were alone in the front room of the shop, Erin still drew closer and lowered her voice. “That’s just the problem, she hasn’t been and she’s really nervous about going out.”

To Calista, going out on a date was just an extension of talking. But she supposed she could see why it might make someone else a little nervous. If she were about to go out with Jake, there might be more than one or two butterflies involved.

“So who’s the lucky guy she’s going out with?” she asked Erin.

Erin paused for a moment. This wouldn’t have been her first choice, but it certainly was going to be a great way for Rose to get her feet wet again. “It’s Nick Pritchett.”

“Bo’s brother-in-law?” Calista asked, surprised.