The Baby's Bodyguard Read online

  “That would be great.” She hesitated, and for a moment Jack hoped she had something to tell him.

  Maybe she regretted their split the way he did. Maybe she’d decided she loved him enough that she didn’t need children to make their family complete. Maybe the separation and loneliness had given her time to think.

  Jack would have done almost anything to win his wife back. But every time he looked at a child, the misery of the past nearly overwhelmed him. At eleven, with his father in prison for robbery and his mother dead of cancer, he’d gone from a home in turmoil to a series of foster placements where he’d been at best an outsider and at worst a nuisance.

  The memories remained raw and the wounds barely scabbed over. The one thing he couldn’t do, even for Casey, was relive them by having a child.

  She broke the silence at last. “The sooner we catch this slob, the better. Several of my tenants are elderly and I don’t want them to have to worry about this.”

  Jack tried not to register disappointment that she had nothing further to say. It almost made him angry, though, that Casey cared more about her tenants than her husband.

  Well, she’d just handed him a golden opportunity to give their marriage one more try. To nab the prowler, he planned to dispatch the best-qualified security agent at his disposal. Himself.

  “I’ll take care of it.” To forestall any protests, he added, “I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

  “I really appreciate it. Thanks, Jack.”

  “No problem.” After a brisk goodbye, he clicked off.

  Although he’d have preferred to get right back on a plane, Jack knew he needed to swing by his house, catch up on the mail and repack. Guiltily, he remembered the African violet he’d bought to make the place seem homier. It must have perished weeks ago, completely forgotten.

  Nobody in her right mind would consider a guy like him a suitable father. Surely a little in-person persuasion would make Casey see reason. And if not, well, at least Jack would have tried. In the process, he’d take care of that prowler, too.

  Readjusting the bag on his shoulder, he dropped the flight attendant’s card into a trash bin with a silent apology. Then, rejoining the stream of pedestrians, he made his way toward the ticket counter.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Casey strolled into Ledbetter’s Garage on Saturday, she found that Royce had dived inside the truck he was repairing. All she could see of her former high-school boyfriend was his jean-clad rear end, somewhat expanded since his football days, sticking into the air in all its glory.

  “Nice view,” she commented.

  The clanking noises he’d been making halted abruptly. A moment later, an oil-smeared face emerged.

  “Well, hi.” Royce grinned flirtatiously, not at all daunted by his greasy condition. “Your car’s ready to go. Tuned up, oil changed, brakes checked.”

  “Great.” Although it galled Casey to have someone else work on her car, she couldn’t perform the maintenance due to her expanded waistline. “What do I owe you?”

  “Let’s call it even.” He shook his head, which set his light-brown ponytail waggling.

  “Let’s not.” Casey might be short on funds, but she didn’t want to owe Royce any favors. She hadn’t fallen in love with him in high school and it certainly wasn’t going to happen now. “I prefer to pay my debts up front.”

  Since her condition had become obvious, Royce had mentioned several times how much he loved kids. Too bad she couldn’t picture waking up beside him every morning. Or, to be honest, any morning.

  “Whatever.” The mechanic ambled into his office, where an oil-smudged computer blinked below a bikini pinup calendar. Posters of football heroes covered the other walls. “A hundred and twenty-three eighty-eight, if you insist. How’s your camera?”

  She’d told him earlier that she planned to stop by Lanihan’s Department Store to find out whether the gush of water had damaged it. “It’s fine. Apparently the case protected it.”

  “You mean you got the guy? You know who it is?”

  “Uh, no,” Casey admitted. “There’s this big blur where his face ought to be.”

  “Too bad. At least you have your camera back for the party tonight, though.” Accepting her credit card, Royce swiped it through a machine.

  “You bet.”

  Two of her tenants, Enid Purdue and Rita Rogers, were throwing her a shower. Half a dozen friends and neighbors planned to attend the event, which, due to the small size of the cabins, would take place at Casey’s house.

  She hadn’t realized she’d mentioned it to Royce earlier when she dropped off the car, but she must have. Or else word had spread. Nothing stayed private for long in Richfield Crossing.

  “So this stalker or whatever he is, you think you scared him off ?” Royce asked as he waited for the computer to finish processing her bill.

  “I doubt it. Seeing a pregnant lady take a tumble isn’t likely to intimidate him.”

  “I heard the police came out.” He certainly had been paying attention.

  “Larry Malloy wouldn’t scare a cockroach. And he isn’t likely to find one, either, even if it’s six feet tall.” Although the town’s young, part-time police officer had arrived half an hour after she’d called Jack, he’d taken only a cursory glance around the property. She doubted she’d ever see an arrest unless her attacker marched into the police station and confessed to the chief.

  Royce handed her the charge slip. She tried not to wince as she signed it, knowing what a hole the amount would make in her bank account.

  The tenants’ rents had sounded like sufficient income when she decided to move here, but she hadn’t realized how big a bite maintenance and taxes took out of that. Once the baby got old enough to leave with a sitter, she’d have to look for a part-time waitress job.

  Royce tore off her copy and handed it over. “Casey, everybody admires your guts, but you don’t have to go through this alone.”

  She flashed him a smile. “I’m not. I have friends.”

  He might have said more had a lean man in his late forties not strolled into view through the open door. “Got my truck done yet?” asked Al Rawlins, who owned the town’s movie theater and video store. “Oh, hello, Casey.” He clamped his mouth shut, obviously not thrilled to see her.

  “Hi.” She wished she didn’t feel so awkward around Al and his wife Mary, who had once been like a second set of parents. “How’s it going?”

  “All right.” Al looked meaningfully from Royce to the truck sitting with its hood open. “I’m in a hurry.”

  “Almost done.” He headed off to finish the repairs.

  Casey stood there wondering what to say, although she doubted she could patch this relationship no matter how hard she tried. She and Al’s daughter Sandra had been her best friend for years. When they moved to L.A. together, she knew the Rawlinses had seen her as an anchor for their high-spirited child, but she hadn’t been able to stop the aspiring actress from getting mixed up with drugs. Finally she’d had to move out for her own safety.

  “Well, I’ll see you around,” she said at last and went out to the car. Al didn’t answer.

  In L.A., she’d hated the sense of letting Sandra down. A week after leaving, she’d gone back to their old apartment hoping to persuade her friend to give up drugs. She’d discovered that a couple of new people had moved in. Not only were they obviously high, but Sandra had joined them in making sarcastic remarks about do-gooders.

  Although Casey had attempted a few more times to maintain the friendship, Sandra had bridled at any suggestion of what she termed pushiness. Since the conflict between them didn’t help her friend, Casey had finally stopped calling.

  A short time later, she’d met Jack at the restaurant where she worked as assistant manager. He’d stopped in for lunch with his partner, flirted with her and returned that evening to ask Casey on a date.

  She’d been struck by how different he was from Sandra’s fast-living friends and the other, rather superfi
cial men she’d met in California. At first, she’d been drawn to his quiet strength. Later, her admiration had grown as she’d discovered both his intelligence and how hard he’d worked to overcome his lack of family support.

  They’d married a few months later and spent two years together. Two years of finding out that she couldn’t fill the void left inside Jack by his miserable childhood. Two years of loving a guy who spent most of his time working and who didn’t know how to meet her halfway emotionally.

  Casey had hoped a baby would bring them together, but he’d adamantly refused to have one. The stronger her longing grew, the more her husband had withdrawn.

  Matters had come to a head a year earlier when she visited Tennessee to help her widowed mother recover from a heart attack. Being back in Richfield Crossing had made Casey realize how lonely and isolated she’d become.

  On her return, she’d told Jack she was willing to stay in L.A. only if he would change his mind about children. When he refused, she’d filed for divorce.

  Casey still missed him, especially at times such as last night when she’d yearned for his reassuring steadiness. But in the long run, she was better off standing on her own two feet. Besides, she had baby Diane to take care of now and to love.

  Still, she couldn’t pretend she preferred it this way. Or maybe the overcast sky was weighing on her spirits, she conceded as she drove along Old Richfield Road. Living in California, she’d grown accustomed to almost constant sunshine.

  Casey shook her head. No use blaming the weather. The memory of last night’s close encounter had heightened her sense of vulnerability and this feeling was compounded by her approaching delivery date. But she refused to yield to negative thoughts.

  So what if she encountered a few obstacles? She’d never believed life was meant to be easy. And she had much to be grateful for.

  Her mood lightened when she caught sight of the freshly painted green-and-white sign advertising the Pine Woods Court. Turning into the driveway past the compartmentalized community mailbox, she rounded some trees and basked in the lights shining from her house into the gray afternoon.

  Casey parked in the carport. As soon as she opened the front door, the scents of vanilla and cinnamon engulfed her. She could hear pans rattling in the kitchen.

  Enid and Rita must have spent hours decorating. They’d draped the walls with pink honeycomb bells and had floated bunches of baby-shaped balloons up to the ceiling. A stork centerpiece dominated the paper-covered table, with candies strewn about. On the coffee table, bowls of nuts circled a pair of candles in the form of baby bottles.

  “This is fabulous.” Casey hurried into the kitchen. “Whatever you’re baking, it smells great.”

  Two flushed faces regarded her, one at the oven, where the owner was removing a tray of sweet rolls, and the other from the counter. At seventy-one, Enid Purdue still carried herself with the authority of a high-school math teacher. She wore her champagne-blond hair fluffed, with a flowered dress softening her figure. As Casey entered, she finished propping two cards on which her bold handwriting labeled one coffeepot “leaded” and the other “unleaded.”

  Shorter and rounder, Rita Rogers, who was about half Enid’s age, manipulated the hot pan onto the stovetop. Rita might be mentally handicapped but she worked hard in the cafeteria of the Benson Glass Company and never missed a chance to help a friend. She also knew her way around an oven.

  A wave of gratitude flooded through Casey. “You guys are amazing.”

  “Thanks.” Rita glowed with pleasure.

  “How’s the camera?” Enid asked. “I brought mine in case we need it, but it isn’t digital.”

  “It’s fine.” As she produced it from her purse, Casey no longer worried about how it had come to be damaged. A prowler now seemed a minor problem and, for all she knew, he’d already decided to make himself scarce.

  The Pine Woods had been built for happiness. How could anyone ask for a better home to bring a baby into?

  As she’d told Royce, she didn’t need a guy. She had her friends.

  * * *

  JACK REALIZED as he swung through Richfield Crossing that he’d expected something different. Munching on dried jerky he’d bought at a convenience store, he checked out the mismatched structures.

  Although he’d never been here before, he’d imagined he knew the place from Casey’s tales about growing up, but he could see now that he’d filled in the blanks wrong. He’d pictured quaint stores packed tightly along the streets, their facades painted in coordinated pastel colors with artsy brickwork in the streets and signs that blazed with neon. Just what he might expect in a California beach community.

  Instead, the stores occupied odd-sized lots, dispersed between community buildings, a church, a doctor’s clinic and a seedy-looking bar, plus the occasional house converted into an accounting firm or a law office. In the early evening, most of them lay dark.

  Although the town appeared clean and well tended, it would give an urban planner fits. Nothing wrong with that; sometimes Jack thought the urban planners in California got drunk on their own sense of omnipotence. Yet the irregular spacing and the jumbled styles made him feel off balance.

  Since renting a car in Nashville, Jack had driven for mile after mile past open fields and vast stretches of dense pine. In the L.A. area, one urban area blended into the next without a break.

  He tried, and failed, to imagine living in the middle of nowhere, without a shopping mall or a tall building in sight. Perhaps he’d never get used to a place like this—but then, he didn’t have to.

  Following the directions he’d printed from the Internet, he cut through the downtown—if you could call it that—and, a short distance farther, turned right on Pine Woods Avenue. Although he hadn’t traveled more than a few miles from town, farmland occupied one side and, on the other, trees studded the rising ground.

  Man, this really was the boonies. How could Casey love it so much?

  In L.A., she’d enjoyed browsing through bookstores and curio shops, attending the theater and people-watching at the Santa Monica Pier, none of which she could do in this backwater. Surely once Jack reminded her of the comforts she’d left behind, she’d reconsider.

  Besides, he’d come ready to bargain.

  He’d worked it out in his mind last night as he visualized the trip ahead. Jack was prepared to reduce his travel for work, although it wouldn’t be easy with Mike eager to expand the company they’d founded because they preferred working for themselves. They’d discussed bringing in a third partner and hiring more operatives, but even then, some travel couldn’t be avoided. Still, he’d find a way to cut back if Casey were willing to give up her preoccupation with a baby.

  If she didn’t love him enough to meet him halfway, he’d have to respect that. Have to back off, even though he’d never craved anything as much as her presence in his life. But he didn’t intend to lose.

  Besides, Casey had asked him to fix this business with the prowler. And no matter what else happened, he intended to do that.

  When he spotted the sign reading Pine Woods Court, Jack veered into the driveway. It curved to the left, so heavily landscaped that, through the leaves, he could barely make out the one-story brick house that he guessed belonged to her.

  Next to it, he spotted half a dozen cars parked in a small lot rimmed by trees. Since the driveway continued, he assumed the renters kept their cars at their cabins farther inside the property. So who did all those vehicles belong to?

  From the green-and-white house came a burst of laughter. Oh, great. Casey must be giving a party.

  Jack pulled into the lot and sat considering the situation. He hadn’t planned on making a grand entrance. Maybe he should drive back into town and find some place to eat dinner, and hope this party didn’t last all evening.

  On the other hand, what if the prowler turned out to be someone Casey knew? If so, he might be sitting in her living room right now, enjoying her hospitality and sizing up his opportun
ity to burglarize the place.

  In Jack’s experience, catching people off guard helped to foil them. No one was expecting him. And with his trained eye, he might note incriminating details other people missed.

  Okay, he’d just invited himself to the party. With luck, Casey would be too polite to throw him out in front of her friends.

  Jack’s shoes crunched on gravel as he headed for the porch. In the dusky light, he identified plenty of vantage points from which a stalker could watch figures moving behind the translucent curtains, although he saw no one lurking in the area at the moment. Still, with overgrown trees providing heavy cover, this place posed a security headache.

  Another burst of laughter. All the voices sounded feminine. Could this be a Tupperware party? he wondered. That seemed like the kind of domestic thing Casey would go for.

  Jack experienced a pang of nostalgia. He’d never lived in a house with cut flowers in vases until he got married. He’d never known a woman could smell so good, either, or what a difference it made when she put up curtains and even, to his amazement, baked her own bread. He’d more or less thought the stuff grew inside plastic bags.

  As he mounted the steps, it occurred to him that the prowler wasn’t likely to be attending a Tupperware party. He also didn’t relish bursting into the middle of a ladies-only event.

  He stopped. Better to double back to town. If he couldn’t find a decent restaurant, at least there must be a grocery store.

  Inside, a female voice grew louder, calling her goodbyes. Before he could retreat, the door opened and the chatter of voices seemed to blow a maroon-haired young woman onto the porch.

  Her gaze swept Jack’s tailored business suit and short, reddish-brown hair. “Now don’t tell me you’re that fellow who’s been sneaking around!” she announced loudly enough to be heard in the next county. “If you are, you can sneak around my house any time. I’m Mimi.”

  She thrust out her hand. He shook it, too astonished by her remarks and overt friendliness to reply.

  “Who’s out there?” A young woman with long dark hair joined the first one. “My gosh, Casey, there’s a hunk on your porch! Where’d you come from, mister? Don’t tell me! My dreams!”