A Gift For Baby. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ she was having on those very same cowboys. That was the way it always was. She just didn’t care. She could walk around in a bikini as though it were a sweat suit, completely unconscious of the picture she made. Hailey Kingston was, in many ways, as natural as a child.

      She wore her honey blond hair haphazardly, shoulder length and untamed. She seldom used makeup, and when she did, it was nothing more than a slash of pearly pink lipstick against her smooth, tanned skin. She was drop-dead gorgeous, and she couldn’t help it. It was her blessing; it was her curse.

      But it didn’t mean much out here in the middle of nowhere. There was no one to see her but the two tiresome excops who’d been sent to watch her every move, and the ranch hands and they’d been warned to stay away from her. At first, it had all seemed deliciously peaceful and serene, but after three weeks, it was just plain boring.

      She heard the sound of boots scuffing along the gravel pathway and she turned, feeling defensive, to find one of the cowboys coming toward her, a shy grin on his young face. She frowned and waited until he reached where she was lounging, then asked, “May I help you?”

      “Uh…” He held out a courier’s packet awkwardly. “Up at the house, they told me to bring you this.”

      Lifting her sunglasses, she stared at his offering. “What is it?”

      “I think it’s your mail, miss.”

      “Mail!” She jumped up and took the bag from him greedily. Her quick thank-you was laced with a smile that made him gape, but she hardly noticed. News from the outside. Hallelujah. Maybe it was a letter from her father saying that this long nightmare was finally over and she could go home. He was the only one who knew where she was, the only one whose letters she was allowed to get.

      But it wasn’t from her father at all. What she found inside the packet was a pink envelope that smelled like…she gave a sniff. Baby powder. How in the world had this made its way through to her?

      She knew they were holding back her letters. They didn’t want her to have any contact with the outside world at all for fear someone would find out where she was. And yet, this little pink envelope had gotten through. This was her lucky day. It was bound to be an invitation to something. She ripped it open eagerly and pulled out a card shaped like a duck, wearing a silky satin bow and a silly smile.

      A baby shower! She flipped open the card and read the details inside, along with a personal note at the bottom. “Hailey, it’s me! Can you believe it? You have to come and help me celebrate. No RSVP needed, because I know you’ll be here!”

      Hailey laughed softly. So, Sara was going to have a baby. “Oh, how wonderful,” she said, sighing.

      “What’s that, ma’am?” The cowboy had been taking his time sauntering away, and when she spoke, he stopped and looked back hopefully.

      “Uh, nothing,” she said, nodding at him, then lifting her chin coolly. Tommy—wasn’t that the name she’d heard him called? She was always careful not to give them false hope. It was best to let on right away that she had absolutely no interest in making friends. She’d learned young that her beauty could be a danger to everyone involved. He looked suitably abashed and she felt a twinge of remorse, but she knew better than to act on it. Best to let him think she was a snob. That would keep him at the distance that had to be maintained. He turned and went on his way, and she sighed.

      Leaning down, she groped in her purse, found her wallet and opened it to the pictures. The wallet fell open naturally to a snapshot of the four young women, and she smiled at it.

      There they were, the Fab Four—she and her three roommates in college. She’d carried that picture with her for eight years, and whenever things got a little too glum, she’d pull it out and remember the good times they’d had together.

      Sara was going to be the first to have a baby, and maybe the only one, the way things were going. Hailey had talked to Cami Bishop, one of the foursome, on the telephone only a few months before, and Cami had more or less conceded defeat. She’d said she wasn’t even looking for the “right man” any longer. She’d decided that illusive person was a member of a race that was now extinct. “Only a few fossils left,” she’d joked, “to remind us of what we’re missing.”

      Her other roomie, J. J. MacKenzie, was too full of ambition and in a career that demanded every ounce of strength. She didn’t have time to think about babies. And Hailey herself—well, she had realized long ago that she would never be able to trust a man enough to build a lasting relationship. That was just the way it was.

      But Sara—yes, they’d always known she would do it. Sara had come from the most perfect family and married someone who was, by all accounts, the most perfect man. And now she would have the perfect baby. It had been in the cards all along.

      “Great,” Hailey said softly, smiling a dreamy smile. “Good for her. Let her have a perfect baby. And let her have a perfect baby shower, too.”

      She pressed the invitation to her chest and looked around as though to guard it from prying eyes. “Oh yes, Sara. I will get to your shower,” she whispered under her breath. “Somehow, someway, I will escape and get to you.”

       One

      “Hey, Mitch. Look at that. It’s the Ice Princess, come into town.” The tall, handsome cowboy rapped his knuckles against the glass of the telephone booth to get his friend’s attention. “Whachya say we go over and make ourselves helpful?”

      Mitch Harper turned in the tiny booth, with the receiver still against his ear, more annoyed at the interruption from Larry than interested in seeing Hailey Kingston emerge from her low-slung sports car. Glancing at her, he shrugged and gestured his disinterest.

      “I’m on the phone,” he told Larry. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

      Larry nodded good-naturedly and started across the street toward where Hailey stood adjusting a scarf she’d worn over her hair in the open car. Mitch watched her for a moment, his eyes narrowing, then his gaze focused on a pair of brightly attired men getting out of a gray sedan half a block away, and he shook his head, going back to his call.

      “You really ought to do something about those two excops they’ve got covering her,” he said softly into the receiver. “They stick out like sore thumbs.”

      “Aren’t they dressed for the area?” asked the gruff voice on the other end of the line.

      “Sure. Circa 1950. They look like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.”

      There was a pause. “Aren’t they both guys?”

      “Yup.”

      “Oh.” The man on the line gave a snort of quick laughter. “I’ll say something to the surveillance coordinator.” He snickered again. “They don’t suspect you, do they?”

      “Those two?” Mitch smiled. “They don’t have a clue. They think I’m a cowboy, just like everyone else does. Just another ranch hand.”

      “Good. I thought you would fit in pretty easily.”

      “Don’t worry about me. I grew up not far from here. I know the area.”

      “But СКАЧАТЬ