The Lost Princes: Darius, Cassius and Monte. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ that we’ve established who you are, let’s get to the real topic. Why are you really here?”

      She sighed. “I told you.”

      But he was already shaking his head. “You told me a lot of nonsense. Do you really expect me to believe you had a baby and don’t know the father? It doesn’t add up, Ayme. How about giving me the real story?”

      She felt like a bird caught in a trap. She hated lying. That was probably why she did it so badly. She had to tell him something. Something convincing. Had to be. She was beginning to see that she would really be in trouble if he refused to help her.

      But before she could conjure up something good, a wail came from across the apartment. Ayme looked toward where the sound was coming from, uncertainty on her face. Why didn’t this baby seem to want to sleep for more than an hour at a time, day or night?

      “I just fed her an hour ago,” she said, shaking her head and thinking of her dwindling stash of formula bottles. “Do you think she really wants to eat again?”

      “Of course,” he told her. “They want to eat all the time. Surely you’ve noticed.”

      She bit her lip and looked at him. “But the book says four hours…”

      He groaned. She was still using a book?

      “Babies don’t wear watches,” he noted, feeling some sympathy for this new mother, but a lot of impatience, as well.

      “True.” She gave him a wry look as she turned to go. “But you’d think they could look at a clock now and then.”

      He grinned. He couldn’t help it. If he really let himself go, he would start liking her and he knew it. And so he followed her into the room and watched as she stroked the little round head rather inefficiently. The baby was definitely crying, and the stroking was doing no good at all. From what he could tell, Ayme didn’t seem to have a clue as to what to do to quiet her.

      “Why don’t you try changing her?” he suggested. “She’s probably wet.”

      “You think so?” That seemed to be a new idea to her. “Okay, I’ll try it.”

      She had a huge baby bag crammed full of things, but she didn’t seem to know what she was looking for. He watched her rummage around in it for a few minutes, then stepped forward and pulled out a blanket which he spread out on the couch.

      “I can do this,” she said a bit defensively.

      “I’m sure you can,” he said. “I’m just trying to help.”

      She winced, feeling genuine regret for her tone. “I know. I’m sorry.”

      She pulled out a paper diaper and laid it on the blanket, then pulled Cici up out of the drawer.

      “There you go little girl,” she cooed to her. “We’re going to get you nice and clean.”

      David stood back and watched, arms folded across his chest, mouth twisted cynically. She didn’t seem very confident to him. Cici wasn’t crying hard, only whimpering at this point, but he had the impression that she was looking up at the woman working over her with something close to apprehension.

      “Don’t you have someplace else you could be?” she muttered to him as she worked, and he could see that she was nervous to be doing this in front of him. Like someone who didn’t really know what she was doing.

      One thing he knew for sure—this woman didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby. How crazy was that? And then it came to him. She wasn’t the mother of the baby. Couldn’t be. In six weeks time anyone would have learned more than she seemed to know.

      “Alright Ayme Negri Sommers,” he said firmly at last, “come clean. Whose baby is this?”

      She looked up, a deer in the headlights.

      “Mine.”

      “Liar.”

      She stared at him for a moment, degrees of uncertainty flashing across her pretty face. Finally, she threw her hands into the air. “Okay, you got me.” She shrugged, looking defeated. “She’s not really mine.” She sighed. “What was your first clue?”

      He grunted, stepping forward to take over. “The fact that you don’t know beans about taking care of a baby,” he said, taking the diaper from her and beginning to do an expert job of it in her place. “The fact that you’re still reading a book to figure out which end is up.”

      She heaved a heart-felt sigh. “I guess that was inevitable. It’s really such a relief. I hated living a lie.” She looked at him with more gratitude than resentment. “How come you know so much about babies, anyway?”

      “I grew up in a big family. We all had to pitch in.”

      She sighed. “We didn’t have any babies around while I was growing up. It was just me and Sam.”

      The baby was clean and in dry diapers. David put her up against his shoulder and she cuddled in, obviously comfortable as could be and happy to be with someone who knew what he was doing. He managed a reluctant smile. It was just like riding a bicycle. Once you knew how to hold a baby, you didn’t forget.

      He turned back to Ayme. “Who’s this Sam you keep talking about?”

      She swallowed, realizing the answer to that question was going to be tied to very different emotions from now on.

      “My…my sister, Samantha. She was Cici’s real mother.”

      And that was when the horror hit her for the first time since she’d left home. Her legs turned to rubber. Closing her eyes, she sank to the couch, fighting to hold back the blackness that threatened to overtake her whenever she let herself think, even for a moment, about Samantha. It was the same for her parents. The accident had taken them, too. Her whole family.

      It was all too much to bear. If she let herself really think about what had happened and about the emptiness that was waiting for her return to Dallas, the bubble she was living in would pop in an instant. She couldn’t think about it and she couldn’t tell him about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The pain was just too raw to manage.

      Steeling herself, she forced out a quick explanation.

      “Sam died in a car accident a few days ago.” Her voice was shaking but she was going to get through this. “I…I was taking care of Cici when it happened. It was all so sudden. It…”

      She took in a gasping breath, steadying herself. Then she cleared her throat and went on.

      “Now I’m trying to get her to where she belongs. I’m trying to find her father.” She looked up, surprised to find that she’d gone through it and was still coherent. “There. Now you know it all.”

      He stared at her. Her eyes looked like dark bruises marring her pretty face. The tragedy in her voice was mirrored by her body language, the tilt of her head, the pain in her voice. He didn’t doubt for a minute that everything she’d just told him was absolutely true and it touched him in a way he hadn’t expected.

      The urge СКАЧАТЬ