The Baby Surprise. Victoria Pade
was six months ago. Shortly after Clarissa moved in she began to abuse the arrangement. She was constantly asking either Hillary or me to baby-sit, and it wasn’t that we minded, it was just that once Clarissa was out she didn’t tend to come back when she said she would.”
“That sounds like Clarissa,” Devon muttered somewhat under his breath. “What starts out seeming fun and spontaneous ends up just being irresponsible.”
“That about sums it up. Anyway, at first she’d just be a few hours late. Then she’d call and say she was spending the night with whoever she was with, she’d be back in the morning before Harley woke up. Then she started staying away for days at a time and nothing we did or said made any difference to her. She wasn’t really even apologetic.”
“That sounds like Clarissa, too.”
“Last week she disappeared completely. Apparently, at some point while Hill and I were gone she’d moved her things out of the house, because she said she was running to the store while Harley napped and then she never came back. When Harley woke up and we went in to get him we realized his things were all that was left in there. Except a manila envelope that had information about the lawyer and the documents assigning Hill and me as Harley’s temporary guardians, and the letter telling us either you are Harley’s dad or Brian Rooney is, that we should figure out which of you it is and turn Harley over to his father.”
“So she managed to give you quite a surprise, too.”
“To say the least. We contacted the lawyer and he confirmed everything. Clarissa had flown the coop.”
Devon was shaking his head. “Amazing.”
“I’m sure we could find her,” Keely continued. “But it just seems like a waste of time. Clarissa made it clear to the attorney that she doesn’t want anything to do with Harley. And to tell you the truth, it isn’t as if she was good for him before this. She didn’t care if he was clean or fed, if he had what he needed in any way. Hill and I actually thought that she might have just left him in his crib and taken off whether we were here or not. But if you really wanted me to—”
“Don’t go looking for her on my account,” Devon said before she could finish that. Then he changed the subject. “But there’s one thing I have been considering since you showed up at my door yesterday. I think I should be with you when you tell Brian Rooney what’s going on.”
“Why is that?”
“A couple of reasons. He’s kind of a hothead for one and it’s hard to say how he’ll take this.”
“Oh, so I can spring it on you but you don’t think I can spring it on him?”
“I’d just feel better if you didn’t have to spring it on him by yourself. Plus, just in case he does something stupid—like refuse to give blood for the test— I’d like to be there to help persuade him. Since I have a pretty high stake in this.”
For a moment Keely studied Devon, wondering what form his persuasion might take and if it was wise to have him along when she told the other man about Harley.
He did have a high stake in this, she conceded. And she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being on her own when she told yet another complete stranger—a complete stranger who apparently had a short fuse—that he might be the father of Clarissa’s child.
“What did you have in mind in the way of ‘persuading’ him if he refuses to give blood?” she asked.
Devon smiled again. “I won’t bring along a baseball bat, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I just want to be there as your backup.”
Was there a hint of flirting in that last part?
Keely couldn’t be sure. But even so, it caused goose bumps to erupt up and down her arms.
“Let me think about it,” she hedged, suddenly more concerned with her involuntary response to this man than with what might happen between him and Brian Rooney if she got them together.
“Okay,” Devon said, easily accepting that it was her decision.
He stood then. “I should probably get going.”
Keely fought a huge rise of disappointment, but she stood, too, absolutely forbidding herself to say anything to delay his departure. This was business, after all, not a social call, and their business, for the moment, was concluded.
“Have you taken Harley into the lab for his blood test yet?” Devon asked on the way to the front door once he’d replaced his sport coat.
“Not yet, no.”
“Then how about if I pick you both up tomorrow and we go together?”
That caught Keely off guard.
“Harley’s naps kind of dictate things,” she said as they reached the entry, realizing that really wasn’t an answer.
“I’m flexible. What’s good for you?”
“It’s usually hard to get much done until two-thirty or three in the afternoon.”
“That’s fine. And then after we hit the lab, how would you feel about a trip to the zoo?”
“The zoo?” Keely repeated, even more confused. Was he just trying to arrange some time to get better acquainted with Harley? Or was there something else to this?
“I’ve signed on to take pictures for a new fundraising brochure—” He cut himself short and explained, “I’m a wildlife photographer. Anyway, I wanted to take a look around, get some preliminary ideas of what I might want to shoot. And since it’s the zoo, I was thinking—zoo, kids—maybe you and Harley might like to go.”
It seemed reasonable enough when he said it like that. And not as if he had any ulterior motives. Maybe it was just a friendly invitation to something he had to do whether they went along or not, and there honestly wasn’t anything else to it. Except maybe getting more comfortable with Harley.
“Harley would love it,” she admitted, making sure Devon knew the baby was the only reason she would consider it. “And I suppose it would be a good treat after putting him through whatever the lab has to do to him. It would also give the two of you more exposure to each other in case you do turn out to be father and son.”
And maybe she was just rationalizing because she wanted to go. Although it wasn’t the animals in the zoo that were inspiring her. It was the company she’d be keeping. She just didn’t want to admit that, even to herself.
“Great,” Devon said into her wandering thoughts. “Then I’ll come by around two-thirty and we’ll go whenever Harley wakes up.”
“All right.”
Devon opened the door to leave but before he did he paused.
“There’s something else that keeps bothering me about this whole thing,” he said then, sounding reluctant to bring it up. “You may not know the answer to this, but Clarissa never wanted to have kids. I’m surprised she went through with it.”
“I do know the answer to that because she told us. But I’m not sure you want to hear it.”
“I’d rather hear it than go on wondering.”
“Until the letter, the only thing she said about Harley’s dad was that things hadn’t worked out with him and she’d gone on to greener pastures. Those ‘greener pastures’ involved a very wealthy man who owned a yacht and she’d taken off with him to sail the south seas.”
“No sense letting any grass grow under her feet just because she’d been juggling two other men,” Devon said.
“She spent several months sailing,” Keely continued, “and she said she lost track of a lot of time. And since her…cycles…were never regular anyway and she’d always practiced safe sex, it didn’t even cross her mind that she could be pregnant. It wasn’t until after she’d started to