Somebody's Baby

“What happened?”

“I couldn’t let go of Meredith.”

“Do you have to?” she asked, frowning. Randy would always be part of her, no matter what. They’d spent nineteen years together.

“I…talk to her.”

She talked to Randy, too, but hadn’t thought the habit would last for years—just until she got used to living alone. “About what?”

“Everything,” he said, his voice soft. “I shot a hole-in-one over Thanksgiving, playing in a tournament with some of Shelter Valley’s best golfers. The only person I even considered telling was Meredith. Not Lauren.”

For one absurd second, Caroline was jealous of a dead woman.

CHAPTER FOUR

PHYLLIS LANGFORD SHEFFIELD COULDN’T stop herself from taking one last backward glance as she accompanied her closest friend, Tory Sanders, down the walk of Tory’s small home. Their neighborhood was perfectly safe, featuring quiet stucco houses with desert landscaping in the yards.

“Let’s just do this block,” she said, her feet moving in place as she geared up for the jog Tory had planned for them.

Tory’s soft blue eyes glinted with an unusual confidence as she, too, glanced back at the house. “There are only eight houses on this street,” she said, grinning. “You gotta establish a rhythm and get into the groove if you’re going to tolerate jogging.” She’d taken both of them shopping the previous day for top-of-the-line running shoes, leggings and soft cotton zip-up jackets. Phyllis’s was black. Tory’s was pink, which complemented her short dark hair and expertly lined eyes.

Bouncing some more, Phyllis nodded. “A groove. Okay…” She didn’t move from her spot.

“They’re going to be fine,” Tory said gently, with the strange mixture of neediness and confidence that had first drawn Phyllis to the younger sister of her murdered best friend. “Alex is great with all the kids. You know that.”

Alex. The eleven-year-old adopted daughter of Tory’s husband, Ben. The little girl had been abused by her biological father and mother and come to live with Ben, her stepfather, at about the same time Tory—also an abused child and then abused wife—had found refuge in Shelter Valley. If all went well, Tory would soon be adopting Alex. “I know,” Phyllis said. She was ready to head up the street. Really. As soon as her feet felt warm. “But she’s never been left alone with my two,” she said, on the off chance Tory hadn’t already heard Phyllis’s worries on that score. The jogging was Tory’s idea—to help Phyllis keep off the weight she’d had trouble losing after having her twins two and a half years before.

“But she has been alone with Chrissie,” Tory reminded her. Chrissie—Phyllis Christine—was the four-year-old daughter Tory and Ben had together. “Calvin and Clarissa won’t be a problem for her,” she added. “They’re just like their mother, too analytical for their own good sometimes, but practically perfect in every way. They’ll have Alex reading to them the entire time we’re gone.”

“Unless Chrissie gets bored…” Tory’s daughter was at that age.

“As long as she’s sitting in her big sister’s lap, she’ll be completely content.” Tory started jogging slowly down the sidewalk. “Come on, we aren’t going to be away very long…”

“I HAD A LETTER from Brad.” Doing as she’d been told, Phyllis concentrated on the rhythm of her breathing in conjunction with the sound of her feet hitting the pavement. So far, jogging still felt like an endurance contest. Only Tory—the sister she’d never had—could’ve managed to get her to do this.

“Why would your jerk of an ex-husband be writing to you after all this time?” Tory, not even a little out of breath, glanced over. “When did it come?”

Phyllis moved aside to avoid a parked car as the two women jogged side by side along the road. “Yesterday.”

“What did he want?”

“He made a pie-in-the-sky investment when we were married—had to do with satellites.” She paused to breathe. “During the divorce…he got his broker to claim a potential value for it that far exceeded its worth at the time.” More breath. In and out. She had to think about the rhythm of her feet against the pavement. That was here and now. “The judge allowed the value to stand…. Brad magnanimously gave that investment to me in exchange for our more liquid assets.”

It smarted even to talk about those days.

“And in an effort to keep the peace, you let him get away with it.”

By now, Tory knew all the sordid details of Phyllis’s marriage to her egotistical, unfaithful and completely selfish first husband.

“I was fighting for my self-esteem. Money paled in comparison.”

“And part of you hoped that if you were generous and cooperative, he’d suddenly realize that your intelligence wasn’t a threat to him and he’d find you desirable again.”

“Which only goes to show that I wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought I was,” Phyllis said, slowing as they approached a corner with a stoplight. The blue sky above, glistening with sunshine that gave a cheery brightness to everything around them, reminded Phyllis that none of it mattered anymore. She was a different woman than the one who’d gained weight after her husband’s numerous affairs and the emotional torment he’d caused her. Married to a man she adored, working in a job she loved, mothering the two most precious children ever and jogging with the sweetest friend a woman could want in sixty-degree weather on the second Wednesday in January, she bore absolutely no resemblance to that other Phyllis at all.

Except that occasionally, like now, she still felt the sting.

“So why was he writing to you?”

She’d known Tory would get back to that.

“The worthless investment suddenly become a windfall?”

“As a matter of fact—” Phyllis jogged across the deserted street beside Tory “—it did. Apparently I’m sitting on a quarter of a million dollars, minus taxes.”

Tory stopped in the middle of the street. “A quarter of a million dollars?”

“Before taxes.” Phyllis met her friend’s incredulous stare before grabbing her arm and pulling her to the opposite corner.

“And why do I get the feeling that Brad wasn’t writing out of the goodness of his heart to tell you about this?”

“Maybe because you know what he’s like,” Phyllis said with a humorless chuckle.

“He wants part of it,” Tory guessed, walking now as they approached her road again.

“He wants all of it. The original investment was his, and his name’s still on some of the documents. I didn’t think it was worth the couple of hundred dollars it would cost in legal fees to have it changed.”

“What does Matt say about all this?”

“I haven’t told him yet….”

JOHN HAD DECIDED to stay away from her. On the golf course early Wednesday morning with Will Parsons and Matt Sheffield, he’d spent the entire front nine feeling guilty and given up his usual first-place ranking for last. The back nine had gone better. In the guilt department at least. When the baby was born, he’d do his part. Until then, he had nothing to contribute. He certainly didn’t owe Caroline Prater anything.

He’d come in last on the back nine, as well.

She picked up her cell on the first ring. And agreed to take a walk in the desert with him before dinner. He hadn’t even tried to talk her into sharing another meal. Finishing up early at the office on Wednesday afternoon, knowing he’d be working late that night, John stopped at home only long enough to put on his jeans and walking shoes. Then he picked her up at Mrs. Howard’s place before she could change her mind.

“Are you sure it’s safe out here?” she asked when he stopped the Cadillac on a dirt path Will had shown him. As a kid, Will had roamed this desert as though it were a ball field in the middle of town. It hadn’t taken John an hour to fall prey to its wonder.

“Safe how?” he asked, looking over at the woman who was still such a stranger to him. And had his baby growing inside her. “As in, are we going to get mugged, or robbed by a gold-panning squatter, or taken captive by an Indian warrior?”

“Indian warrior?” Caroline asked with an arched brow. “I was talking about the nonhuman variety of danger.” Her boots barely made a sound as she trod slowly down the path that led to a rocky ledge. It overlooked a surprisingly green ravine up ahead.

Careful to keep enough distance between them so he wouldn’t be inhaling the fresh lilac scent of her hair—he supposed it was the kind of shampoo she used—John shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and shrugged. “Yeah, the desert can be dangerous, but not if you’re careful.”

She slowed, glanced over her shoulder at him. “So those javelina I read about on the Internet, are they around here? Or only up in the mountains?”

“They’re here,” John said, focusing on both sides of the path—playing a game of name that plant. Cholla. Prickly pear. Palo verde. It was either that or look at her nicely rounded butt moving back and forth in those threadbare jeans. “But javelinas usually stay out of sight. Mostly you want to watch for rattlesnakes. As long as you don’t step on one, they’ll leave you alone. And you never, ever, want to be out here without water. Something as simple as a sprained ankle could leave you out in the desert for hours or days.”