Baby's First Christmas

She was babbling. He chalked it up to her condition. “There’s no reason to get nasty—”

Her mouth went dry. “No reason? No reason?” With the flat of her hand planted on his chest, she caught him off guard and pushed him toward the door. “Have you been paying attention to your end of the conversation, Mr. Travis?” Marlene’s voice went up an octave as she pushed him again. “You’ve just asked me to make a profit on my baby. Not even my father was that unfeeling, and he pretty much set the standard for being cold-blooded.”

He had to make her understand. He wasn’t being cold-blooded. He was being the exact opposite. He was attempting to prevent his father’s heartbreak and give the child a heritage. “This grandchild will mean a great deal to my father.”

She wanted him out. Now. “Fine, we’ll visit. Often, if necessary.” Her hand on the doorknob, she conceded one small point. “The baby could use a grandfather. Now get out of here before I forget that I am a lady—a very large lady, but a lady nonetheless.”

He had no intention of leaving yet. He examined the situation. His resolution to gain custody didn’t waiver, but there were more things to be gotten with honey than with vinegar, and no one appreciated that more than he did. His agitation over the situation had made him temporarily lose sight of that.

Sullivan tried again. “Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot—”

Maybe? “That wouldn’t be an understatement even if you were a centipede.” Her expression remained cold. “I’d like you to leave my house.”

He couldn’t leave, not until he felt certain they at least were making some headway. Sullivan damned his brother from the bottom of his soul for placing him in this miserable position. “Perhaps—”

There was no “perhaps” about it. Her hand tightened around the knob as she prepared to yank the door open. If she could have, she would have booted him out.

“Now!”

The doorbell rang just then, an answer to a silent prayer. Marlene swung the door open, ready to enlist the aid of anyone on the other side.

The tall, slender man in the black turtleneck sweater, black slacks and blue-gray windbreaker looked from Travis to Marlene. From his expression, he was accustomed to domestic discord. His eyes rested on Marlene.

“Mrs. Bailey?”

“Ms.,” she corrected with more verve than she customarily would have. It was men like Travis who made her grateful that she’d never married. “But you have the surname right.” She looked pointedly at Sullivan. “It’s Bailey.” She said the name with emphasis. “And it’s going to remain that way.”

She wasn’t talking about herself, she was talking about the baby, Sullivan knew. He wasn’t going to get anywhere today. Resigned, he took his wallet out of his breast pocket and extracted a pearl gray business card. He held it out to her. “This is my number.”

Marlene took the card and folded it in half without looking at it.

The action piqued his temper, but he held on to it. Flaring tempers were for children. People in his position didn’t have the luxury of losing their tempers, and he knew that the harder he pushed, the more it would make her dig in. She needed time to think this over; he could appreciate that. In time, he felt confident she would arrive at the right choice.

“We’ll get together and discuss this further when you’re feeling more rational.”

The pompous ass. Did he think that money entitled him to destroy lives? “I’m afraid that day will never come, Travis. This is about as rational as I get with people who want to buy my baby.”

Spencer scowled. “Problem?” he asked Marlene.

“It was just leaving,” Marlene said sweetly. “Weren’t you, Mr. Travis?”

There was nothing to be gained at the moment by remaining. “For the time being.”

“I think the lady means forever,” Spencer observed mildly.

Marlene looked at the man on her doorstep. Travis had made her so angry, she’d nearly forgotten about her meeting with the private investigator. “John Spencer, I presume?”

A smile brought out the creases around his mouth. “At your service.”

Murphy’s law. All these years, nothing. Now suddenly the house was overflowing with men. Why hadn’t this happened nine months ago, when she had made up her mind that her life wasn’t going to be an empty shell any longer?

She turned toward the private investigator. She no longer needed him to discover the identity of her baby’s father, but there might be a few things she did want him to look into. “You’re just in time to help me show Mr. Travis out.”

Spencer smiled. “My pleasure.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sullivan told him. He crossed the threshold, then turned and looked at Marlene. “Keep the card, Ms. Bailey, and call me. We really do need to talk.”

With an exaggerated motion, Marlene tore the card in half as Spencer obligingly closed the door on Sullivan for her.

“I wouldn’t sit by the telephone waiting if I were you,” she called through the door.

This definitely did not have the earmarks of something that was going to shape up well, Sullivan thought as he exited the freeway. Marlene Bailey was not going to be easy to win over. More than likely, she would be downright impossible.

The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer. He should really have those words branded somewhere on his anatomy after a life of being Derek’s guardian angel.

Derek. Damn, but he was going to miss that heartless son of a bitch.

Sullivan brushed a tear from his cheek as if it were an uninvited intruder. He tried not to think what a waste it all was, dying at thirty-two in a neighborhood his brother had no business living.

Damn you, Derek.

He had another errand to see to before he finally went home.

Sullivan had put off talking to his father as long as possible, hoping that he could temper the bad with the good when he finally told the old man what he’d discovered. Now he was going to have to give it to his father straight.

He wasn’t looking forward to it.

When Sullivan entered the living room, Oliver Travis appeared to be dozing over his side of a chess board. Sullivan arched an inquiring eyebrow toward Osborne, his father’s housekeeper. The thin man shrugged.

Tomorrow, Sullivan thought. This could definitely keep until tomorrow. Maybe by tomorrow, Marlene would have a change of heart. He turned quietly on his heel.

“Don’t skulk away.” His father’s voice stopped him just as Sullivan reached the threshold. “I’m just meditating. Can’t a man close his eyes without everyone thinking he’s asleep, or dead?” Oliver pressed the controls on his armrest and brought the motorized wheelchair around. “Well, you certainly took your time coming to me.” He didn’t wait for Sullivan’s reply. “So, did you go through Derek’s effects?”

“Yes.” Damn, this was hard. He knew how his father was going to take the news, and he dreaded what it would do to him.

“And it was just another one of his cruel jokes, right?” Watery green eyes looked up at him hopefully, charging him to give an affirmative answer. “He didn’t sell himself, did he?”

It would be a great deal easier to lie and say it had all been a cruel hoax. But then he would have to eat those words should the information ever come to light. Sullivan exchanged looks with Osborne.

The old man knew, he thought. Somehow, he knew. But then, he’d always had an uncanny ability to see through them all.

“No, it wasn’t a joke, Dad. Derek really did go to a sperm bank.”

Oliver’s jaw slackened, and anger colored his shallow cheeks. “Buy it back!” he thundered. “Hang the cost, just buy it back.”

Sullivan shook his head. “It’s too late for that.”

“Too late?” Oliver uttered the question as if air were leaking out of him. “What do you mean, it’s too late? How late?”