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“I doubt I’ll get married.” About the Author Title Page Dedication PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN EPILOGUE Copyright
“I doubt I’ll get married.”
“You have something against the state of holy matrimony?” Andy asked.
“Let’s just say it’s never been in my plans,” Lori replied.
“Why wouldn’t marriage be in your plans eventually? I can’t believe you don’t expect anyone to ask.”
“Sure, beat men off with a stick daily.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Andy said too seriously, despite his smile.
Lori sighed and reminded herself that her growing admiration for Andy had nothing to do with him personally. Falling for him would be a hopeless disaster...
Val Daniels wrote her first romance in the sixth grade when her teacher told the class to transform a short story they’d read into a play. Val changed the bear attack story into a romance, and should have seen the writing on the wall. She didn’t. An assortment of jobs, hobbies and businesses later, Val stumbled across a Writer’s Market in the public library and finally knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. She suspects it will take eighty or ninety years to become bored with this career.
Val lives in Kansas with her husband, two children and a Murphy dog. She welcomes correspondence—with an SASE—from readers, at P.O. Box 113,
Gardner KS 66030, U.S.A.
Santa’s Special Delivery
Val Daniels
For Judy Christenberry, whose name should be the
definition of “friend” in the dictionary. Thanks for
everything, Judy—including the title.
PROLOGUE
LORI Warren hummed along with the song playing on the bedroom radio. Her voice startled her as she actually sang a couple of the words aloud. Joyful and triumphant ? Who, she wondered distastefully, had associated those particular words with the Silly Season? She frowned as she flipped off the radio.
She made her own concessions to Christmas, she admitted to herself, eyeing her reflection in the mirror and rubbing her lips together to blend the subtle glimmer of holiday gold into the rich burgundy color.
At least she looked good in one of the concessions: holiday colors. The bright, enameled holly earrings made her eyes sparkle even greener. The berries on the matching lapel pin were toned perfectly to the bright suit, and her short, stylishly cut brown hair picked up its reddish tint. She tipped her head this way and that to catch the light. She liked it. Maybe she ought to color it?
She gave herself an encouraging thumbs-up in the mirror. “And you’re getting almost good at playing the game,” she congratulated herself.
One last day. She could fake the cheer one last day, she comforted herself, then life would get back to normal. Well, almost normal, she modified. There were actually four more days until Christmas, but for the next three, she would hide. She wouldn’t have to go to work and put on a happy face to fool anyone.
She’d hole up here, in her cozy apartment, and watch from a distance as all the world went crazy around her. Avoiding the mass chaos, she’d read the stack of books she’d been accumulating since before Thanksgiving—back when you could still buy a book that didn’t feature some Christmas theme. Then people would become sane again.
Then in five days, she’d hop a plane to Denver and join the group of friends who had made a New Year’s ski trip an annual tradition since their last year in college. Looking forward to that always got her through this manic season.
“Bah humbug!” she said with grim satisfaction, then grinned at her reflection.
If she didn’t get a move on, she was going to be late. Her position in the city’s convention and visitors’ bureau was already on shaky ground. Her newly appointed boss was a bit intimidated by her knowledge and experience.
Turning off the lights, she grabbed her purse from the kitchen counter and her heavy coat from the small closet in the foyer of the apartment.
She stepped backward into the hall, automatically double-checking the door lock, and stumbled over something. She almost fell into whatever crowded her feet. Her hands flailed as she did a little dance in the two-inch heels and managed to regain her balance.
Great! She frowned at the knee-high cardboard box that had attacked her. One of her neighbors had evidently bought a nineteen-inch color television for Christmas... and left the box for me to dispose of!
She nudged it. The box seemed light, weighted on the bottom. They definitely hadn’t left her the TV. Probably a pan of cinnamon rolls or some variety of homemade Christmas goodies, and whoever had left it had used all their reasonable-size boxes for wrapping presents, she thought sarcastically.
“I really don’t have time for this,” Lori muttered under her breath. Pulling back one top flap, she glimpsed a brightly colored patchwork fabric. Of course. Poor misguided Mrs. Jeffers down the hall had made her something.
Last fall, Mrs. Jeffers had invited Lori in to see the huge floor pillows she’d been making for all her nieces and nephews. She made all of her Christmas presents, the woman had explained proudly when Lori had oohed and aahed over the woman’s skill. The compliments had probably earned Lori a patchwork floor pillow of her very own.
She’d check it out later, she decided. She and the boss were doing a presentation for a fairly important client at a breakfast meeting scheduled for nine o’clock. She couldn’t afford to be late.
She groped in her purse for her keys and scooted the box into her apartment, far enough away from the door that she wouldn’t stumble over it when she returned.
Something shifted inside. Moving the box had just rearranged the contents. No damage done. Lori shrugged and almost had the door closed behind her again when she heard a sound.
She widened the gap, flipped the foyer light switch and stared at the box in dismay. Kittens? Surely none of her neighbors would bring her kittens. Pets weren’t allowed in this complex.
The weak, snuffley mewing came again. With a sinking feeling and an irritated curse for whoever had put her in this predicament, Lori approached the box again.
She couldn’t keep it, but she ought to move the box into the kitchen and heat a saucer of milk for the poor thing before she abandoned it for the day.
Something jumped as she opened one flap and Lori started.
She shuddered, then peeled open another flap, tentatively this time. She could still only see the brightly colored fabric someone had draped inside. Well, at least whoever had packed this little surprise had been generous with cushioning. The quilt or whatever it was filled the bottom half of the huge box.
The mewing started again and grew louder. Unable to stand the suspense any longer, Lori jerked the last two flaps open. Whatever was inside sprang again.
Lori gasped in surprise, then fell to her knees.
The jumping thing was a tiny foot, kicking at a blanket. And the human baby, who’d only been tuning up so far, emitted an earsplitting angry cry.
“Oh, my God!” Tears gathered in her eyes. “Oh, God,” she whispered again, “oh, my.” She couldn’t seem to quit repeating it. “Oh, my,” she crooned, reaching automatically for the child.
Lori unstrapped the babe from the infant carrier that had been placed in the bottom of the box. As soon as she lifted and gathered the child to her shoulder, the crying started to ease. The sobs turned quiet, which was even more heartrending than the insistent crying. He snuggled and curled against her.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the floor, the tiny baby against her chest. She only knew she was in shock. She knew the throwaway baby needed her warmth as much as she suddenly needed his.
A throwaway child.
A cap of dark hair curled slightly up at the ends and surrounded his face like a soft halo. His miniature head fitted into the palm of her hand. Tiny fingers curled and then spread spasmodically against her chest. He was so perfect, so... so helpless.
Lori couldn’t stop shaking any more than she could stop the fierce, tender mix of emotions that spread from the tiny body straight into her quietly breaking heart.
The baby wiggled, turned his head, opening and closing his mouth. Even with her lack of experience, Lori realized the tiny thing was starving. She lowered him to her lap and settled him in the hollow she’d created when she’d dropped to sit, cross-legged, on the floor.
The baby flung his arms back, fighting against the imprisoning folds of the blanket, protesting his new position. His face contorted in fury. She wasn’t prepared for the infuriated wail he let loose. The kid had lusty lungs. A positive thing, she decided. It must mean he was healthy.
“But I don’t have a thing to feed you, sweetie,” she said almost desperately. Surely, surely, she prayed, his mama wouldn’t leave him without anything to eat.
Reaching for the top of the box, she tipped it over. Several things clacked together, then thudded against the cardboard side of the box and the well-cushioned floor.
With one hand bracing the screaming, squirming baby’s tummy, Lori fished around a second blanket with the other. A handful of disposable diapers. She tossed them aside. A tiny outfit of some sort.
“How do women do this?” she muttered, feeling awkward and inadequate as she held on to him and worked one-handed.
The baby turned his piercing cry up a notch in volume as if berating her for wasting time with stupid, unimportant questions. He was hungry.
“I’m trying,” she whispered, pushing the carrier aside and out of the way. The blanket came next, spilling additional diapers beside her. There, on its side, was a plastic bottle, filled and topped with a flat lid to keep it from spilling. “Thank you, God,” she whispered.
She took the cap off and realized she had no idea what to do with it. Give it to the baby like this? Maybe she’d be able to think if he would stop screaming for a minute.
“It’s okay, baby.” She comforted him with a frantic pat against his tummy.
Two cans lay against each other in the bottom of the box. Applying a little more pressure to keep him where he was, she leaned on one hip to reach one of them. She read the side of the can, then cast it aside. No instructions? How could a can of formula not have instructions? It rolled back and clinked against the other one.
“Sorry, baby.” He was strong, wriggling against her hand. But she was certain she detected his tiny body weakening. His cry seemed to hold less energy than it had only seconds ago. “This has to be okay.”
She braced him with her forearm so she could use both hands to remove the snug cap. A minute later, she held the nipple to his mouth. He suckled once, then pushed at it with his tongue and turned his head.
She pulled it away. Oh, great! She was doing something wrong.
He opened and closed his mouth, still seeking. His chest rose and fell sharply a couple of times. His arms and legs stiffened and jerked. His face turned a rosy red. She knew she was in for another angry scream.
“Wanna try again?” she begged softly. “I don’t know what else to do.”
This time, he made a face, tried to draw away, then began a hesitant sucking. He accompanied the motion with the same quiet mewling that had alerted her to his presence in the first place.
What if she had just pushed the box inside, locked the door and went her merry way? She felt weak, thinking it might have happened that way. The knots in her muscles eased a bit as she sighed with relief. “It’s a good thing you cried,” she told the tiny, tiny infant, though she was no longer sure if she was talking to herself or the baby.
“Who,” she exclaimed, “on God’s green earth would leave you here? With me?”
The words reminded her of the slip of paper she’d seen beneath one of the milk cans. The baby continued to drink, oblivious to her movements now as she looked eagerly at the box again.
“There it is.” The paper looked miles away and she noted her current limitations. How did you hold on to a baby, hold on to a bottle and do anything else? She lifted him carefully from her lap and into the crook of her arm. He was light, barely weighed anything. He couldn’t be very old. Maybe a few days? Hours? she thought in wonder.
He watched her with unseeing, fuzzy blue eyes as she wiggled closer to the opening of the box. Hunched half in, half out of it, she wedged the bottom of his bottle between her neck and chin. Stretching as far as she could reach, she pushed at the cans and ran her hand along the bottom until her fingers felt a different texture.
“We got it,” she said triumphantly, then dropped it to grab for the bottle that came loose when she spoke.
Adjusting him, the bottle and herself, she groped for the paper again. We got it! she thought. Her back felt as though she was developing curvature of the spine. Her arms ached. She scooted out of the box and wiggled back to lean against the door she didn’t remember shutting. One-handed, she smoothed the folded notebook paper against her raised knee.
The message was in a carefully penciled print. I know you won’t let anything bad happen to my baby.
The simple words swam before her eyes. She gulped at the lump blocking her throat. She blinked rapidly to push the tears away, then let them stream, unheeded, down her cheeks.
Kissing the tiny head cradled in her arm, she vowed, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” I won’t, she promised.
CHAPTER ONE
ANDREW McAllister peeled the well-worn envelope from his door. Hadn’t his neighbors ever heard of Post-it notes? With his thumb, he scrubbed at the small spot of residue left by the tape. As he inserted his key in the lock, he glanced at the original address on the recycled envelope. Lori Warren, Apartment 339, had been x’d out. His own name had been hurriedly scrawled above it.
Tugging at his tie, he slipped inside and set the note on the partition separating the foyer from the living room.
Lori Warren? This building, two floors up, he placed her address. He tried to remember meeting her and frowned when no particular face came to mind. Another neighbor attempting to bring him into their congenial little fold, he supposed. He’d deal with it later when he wasn’t so rushed for time.
The wall clock on the opposite side of the room said he had an hour and twenty minutes to get to the most important Christmas party of the season—of his life. That wasn’t much time when it was a forty-minute drive to the governor’s palatial private home in the suburbs.
He ’made his way to the master suite.
Several people had assured him it was a huge coup to be invited to the private party the governor and his wife held in their home. But next year, Andy determined, he’d be going to the one in Topeka. The official one held at the governor’s mansion.
He turned on the shower with one hand as he removed his watch with the other. Allowing time for the temperature to adjust, he drew his tux from the back of the closet and removed the protective plastic bag the dry cleaners had covered it with. It looked okay, he assured himself. He’d had it cleaned last summer, the last time he’d worn it, but he’d been concerned all afternoon, worrying whether it might need a fresh pressing, cursing himself for not thinking to check it sooner.
He smiled to himself as he stepped under the hot spray sending huge clouds of steam out into the room and beyond. He knew as surely as he knew his name that worry over the suit was only a symptom. He wanted this appointment and knew he had only a slight chance of getting it.
He couldn’t remember the last time his stomach had clenched and fluttered the way it had been doing all day. Maybe when he’d taken the bar?
His friends and fellow attorneys called him The Iron Man in court. He’d worked hard to establish the reputation. Nothing shook him. He didn’t allow it. No one ever knew what he was thinking or planning.
Still smiling as he stood naked before the mirror to shave, Andy admitted that it had been a long time since he’d wanted anything as badly as the appointment the governor would be making early in the new year. Everyone, himself included, knew the invitation to this party was one of the governor’s ways of checking him out.
You’ll be fine, he assured himself, turning away from his image and quickly dressing.
When he returned to the living room, he was startled to find he still had fifteen minutes before he needed to leave. He dithered uncharacteristically next to the coat closet. He didn’t want to be late but he didn’t want to be the first one there, either.
The envelope that had been attached to his door caught his eye. It gleamed in the soft recessed lighting. He picked it up, reaching to pull the note from inside. His fingers hovered at the frayed top edge as he realized the back of the envelope itself held the message in pencil, then pen. Please! I don’t know if I need a lawyer but I do know I... The pencil lead had broken and blue ink took over....need your advice—advice underlined twice. Please, could you come to my apartment? ASAP! The ASAP was also underlined twice.
Lori Warren, it was signed. Apartment 339 had been added like an afterthought.
It’s an emergency.
He almost missed the last. The small print crawled up the side of the envelope. At least there were no happy faces or Merry Christmases added in shaky, flowing script. Bertha Thomas, the elderly widow across the hall, liked to add those when she left him little informative instructions once or twice a week about the obligations and duties of apartment living.
He read the note again, adding a “desperately” where the pencil lead had broken. The word wasn’t there in black and white, but he heard it in his head as clearly as if it were. The note screamed it.
Checking the time again, he grabbed his dress coat from the closet, flung it over his arm and patted his pants pocket to make sure he had his keys.
This—he fingered the envelope—would nicely fill the ten minutes remaining. He’d earn a few extra brownie points with his neighbors—not that he needed them. He wouldn’t be living here that long—and this was probably someone panicky about too many speeding tickets. The advice he would give was quick and cheap: Slow down and pay!
Lori glared at the noisy thud at the door. It had been the worst—and best—day of her life and she’d just gotten the baby to sleep. She wanted nothing more than to crash in a chair and become a zombie for a few minutes.
Instead, she hurried to the door...and opened it just in time. His fist was raised to knock again. She didn’t need this heavy-handed visitor hammering twice and waking the baby.
She didn’t need this visitor at all, she thought as she felt her jaw drop. Tall, dark hair, dark eyes, with a sculpted face she was certain turned women to mush. Who else was going to turn up on her doorstep today? First a baby, now the gift from the gods she’d been fantasizing about.
She’d met him twice as she was coming out of the workout room in the basement of the apartment complex clubhouse. Sweaty and red-faced, both times she’d tried hard to blend with the woodwork and she’d prayed that she would meet him when she looked good. Why, oh, why couldn’t she run into this man when she didn’t look like something someone had pureed in the blender?
Third time’s a charm, she thought caustically as her hand automatically went to her hair. She could feel tangles beneath the short sprigs that were sticking out in every direction. The red suit she’d never gotten around to changing felt sticky from nervous perspiration and baby formula. She had a run the size of New York City climbing the back of her hose.
And he was standing there in a tuxedo, looking so picture-perfect he could have stepped off the top of a wedding cake. She didn’t know whether to drool or slam the door in his face.
“Lori Warren?” he asked, sounding as dismayed as she felt. Then he held up her envelope. “You left me this?”
“Mr. McAllister?”
He nodded, looking slightly startled as she grabbed his arm and yanked him into her apartment, closing the door behind him.
Her concerns about the way she looked were forgotten as tears formed in her eyes. “Oh, thank God, you’re here. You will never guess what happened today and I don’t...I can’t—”
“Slow down.” He held up an elegant hand. He used the same hand to touch the small of her back, half leading, half pushing her through the arch, past the low wall dividing the square foyer and into the small living room. “Come on. Let’s sit down. You can calmly tell me all about whatever the problem is.” He guided her toward the couch, stepping around the cluttered coffee table. He lowered his long length beside her as her knees gave out and she sat down.
She held her breath, studying her new neighbor. His hand on her back had felt reassuring. She felt adrift with it gone.
“Now,” he said gently, “tell me what happened today.”
She opened her mouth, then shook her head. She couldn’t find the words. The tears that had flowed so freely all day started again. She tried to stop them but they kept right on rolling. They rattled her. She never cried.
Today, they’d spurted when the baby cried, spurted when she’d left the baby asleep and alone for two minutes to take the elevator down to place the note on his door, spurted every single time she’d thought about the baby—and she’d thought of nothing else—or read the note...
The note. That might explain what she couldn’t. She grabbed it from the edge of the coffee table, gazing at it mindlessly for the hundredth time. She didn’t need to read it. She’d memorized it. It didn’t take much. Eleven words.
Eleven words that meant nothing, she realized, smoothing the note against her thigh. I know you won’t let anything bad happen to my baby.
“I don’t know what to do,” she mouthed soundlessly, searching his face and eyes, hoping to find wisdom there.
Tiny lines formed between his brows as he stared at the paper she still held. “Maybe it would help if I read it?”
She hesitated, then handed it to him.
He looked up from the carefully lettered sheet of white stationery. The lines deepened as his scowl turned to a full-fledged frown. “You want me to keep something bad from happening to your baby?”
She nodded yes, then immediately changed it to a no. She felt her lips quiver and pressed her mouth with her fingertips.
“We are talking about a baby?” he queried. He glanced at the paper again. “Little thing about—” he held out his hands to the appropriate size “—so big?”
She nodded and gave him a tremulous smile.
“Then we’re on the right track. I do know what they are,” he assured her with a wink. His charming sense of humor made her feel almost sane.
The sanity went right out the window with the baby’s cry from Lori’s bedroom. She jumped up and ran from the room without another thought to her visitor.
On her knees in the middle of the bed, Lori checked the baby’s diaper. She’d just changed it before she’d fed and managed to put the infant to sleep by sitting on the edge of the bed, swaying back and forth. That had been less than twenty minutes ago. Surely—
“What exactly are you expecting to happen to your baby that a lawyer can fix?” the man asked in a deep voice.
She glanced at the handsome figure who’d followed her and propped himself against the door frame.
“Have you been threatened? Is the baby’s father trying to take him away from you?”
“It’s a she,” Lori corrected. She’d found she couldn’t continue calling the baby a “him” when she’d changed her first diaper. She carefully lifted the babe and turned to sit down on the edge of the bed. Rocking automatically, she murmured softly and cradled the child against her. The baby immediately stopped crying.
If the past couple of hours had proved anything, they proved she had to trust someone. She’d thought she’d have an hour or two before the helpless being, who depended on her completely, woke again. Time to think. Time to figure out how to get more diapers. The baby was wearing the last one included in the surprise package this morning.
“It isn’t my baby,” she managed to whisper.
His back went ramrod straight. Those wonderful brown eyes sharpened. The light behind them said his mind worked quickly. They narrowed and directed suspicion at her. He was drawing the wrong conclusions!
“I didn’t steal her,” she protested.
His eyes widened. “You’re keeping her for a friend?”
“Sort of,” she prevaricated, unable to meet his gaze. “I found her. Outside my door. In that big box in the living room,” she added.
“With the note.” Understanding was beginning to dawn.
She rose, coming across the room carefully to protect the child from jolts. The tiny eyelids had fluttered closed again. The delicate mouth puckered and moved in the same motion the baby girl used to drink from her bottle. Maybe the infant would sleep for a while if Lori just continued to hold her.
The visitor seemed stunned. Speechless.
Lori jerked her head toward the light streaming down the hall from the living room. “Come on. Let’s go back out there. Will you give me some advice?”
He stepped aside, waiting for her to lead.
Lori eased down onto the edge of the couch. This time, he didn’t sit down beside her. Mr. McAllister stood before her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his black trousers, ruining the elegant line of his impressive tuxedo.
He was the first one to speak. “When did you find her?”
“’Bout seven-thirty this morning.”
“You haven’t called the authorities?”
“I haven’t told anyone. Except you now,” she added. She wanted to be honest with him. Surely the what-you-get-out-is-only-as-good-as-what-you-put-in- rule applied to lawyers as well as computers. Truth was the only way she could expect to get good advice, wasn’t it?
“Why?”
“At first, I didn’t have time. I was occupied trying to figure out how to take care of her.” She realized she was still whispering. She cleared her throat. “Then I wasn’t sure who to call, what authority. And, by the time I could, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to call anyone. That’s when I left the note for you.”
His lips compressed in a solid, uncompromising line over those perfect white teeth. She glanced quickly away from him.
“Ms. Warren, you need to give me a retainer.”
That brought her attention back.
“Are you hiring me?” he asked. His face looked carved out of stone. “If you are, you need to give me some money.”
There was an urgency in his voice, something she couldn’t ignore but didn’t understand. Greed? Irritation set in so fast she had to consciously hold on to her temper and remind herself she didn’t want to wake the baby. He didn’t look nearly as good as he had a minute ago. She focused on keeping her voice calm. “Can you bill me? I just want a little bit of advice. I wanted—”
“Lady, if you’re hiring me,” he interrupted, “do it. Now.”
So much for the rave reviews she’d heard from various elderly neighbors about the nice lawyer who’d moved into the complex. No advice without money, huh? She resented his obvious conclusion that she wanted free advice. Couldn’t he bill her after the fact if there was a charge? One of the things she’d pondered at the back of her mind all day was whether she could afford a baby. She was living—barely—to the hilt of her income now. She would have to cut expenses somewhere, probably first by finding a less expensive apartment. She hadn’t considered legal expenses.
She lifted her chin. “I don’t know where I put my purse,” she said, looking around. It wasn’t on the kitchen counter where she usually set it. She’d been on her way out the door when she found the baby. She didn’t think she’d touched it since then.
“This it?” He spotted it on the floor beside the arch leading to the foyer just as her gaze landed there. He lifted it and handed it across to her.
“Thanks.” She juggled to open the wallet with one hand, then finally placed the open purse on the coffee table in front of her.
“Here, let me take the kid,” he offered. In a second, before Lori could think about it, the child was in his arms. He plopped the infant against his shoulder, bracing her nonchalantly with one arm. Lori resented his casual confidence with the baby as much as she resented his greed. Life really wasn’t fair.
“How much?” she asked stiffly, withdrawing two twenties from her wallet.
“Write me a check,” he replied absently. “That would be better.”
“Very well.” She got out her checkbook and pen. “How much? Will a hundred do? You can always bill me if it’s more,” she felt compelled to add.
“Fifty should do it,” he said. He patted the child as though he was an old hand at knowing what a baby needed. She looked smaller than ever compared to his hand. He glanced at his watch and grimaced as she handed him the check. He stuffed it in his pants pocket without looking at it. “Thanks.”
She would swear the sigh he emitted was one of relief. She held out her arms for the child.
“Let me take care of her for a few minutes,” he offered again, adding gently, “You look exhausted. Sit down. Take your time. I’ll hold the young‘un while you concentrate on telling me what you want me to do.”
“Isn’t that what I just hired you for? To tell me what I should do?” She couldn’t keep the indignation out of her voice.
“No, ma’am.” His soft chuckle surprised, then warmed her. “You hired me to keep us out of trouble.”
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