Babies By The Busload. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ shook her blond curls. “No, Bambi.” She said it louder, as though that might get the meaning across a little better. “She’s Daddy’s friend. She’s pretty and she wears big high heels.”

      “Oh.” Aha—that sort of Bambi. She suppressed a catty smile. Daddy’s friend, was she? Jack had enjoyed quite a reputation as a ladies’ man in the old days, but that was before marriage and kids. Surely he didn’t play those games any longer.

      “Well, Bambi doesn’t live here anymore. I’m going to be staying here for a while.”

      Annie looked puzzled by that. “Where did she go?”

      “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

      “Maybe Daddy knows.” She settled her chin into her palms. “She likes my Daddy.”

      J.J.’s head went back and something twisted in her soul. Surely good old Jack wasn’t flirting around with the neighbor right under his daughter’s nose?

      “I’ll bet a lot of women like your daddy,” she murmured, looking at the girl speculatively.

      Annie shrugged. “Not Marguerite. Daddy says Marguerite hates him sometimes.”

      J.J. knew she ought to smile pleasantly and leave this conversation lie. She tried. She really did. But in the end, curiosity got the better of integrity.

      “Who…who is Marguerite?” she asked, hating herself but unable to resist.

      Annie looked at her blankly. “She has orange hair. She lives with us. Her room is next to mine. She takes care of Daddy.”

      “Oh, she does, does she?” First Bambi, now Marguerite. She’d always pegged Jack Remington as a playboy, but this was going a bit far. For some reason, she was seething. The lousy womanizer. The profligate. The lewd and lascivious lecher. How dare he flaunt his lovers in front of this sweet little girl of his?

      And what about this girl’s other parent? Didn’t she count in his self-centered world?

      “Just.ah.where exactly is your mother?” she asked, trying to hide her real emotions.

      Annie looked up and faced her with clear eyes. “My mama is in heaven,” she lisped. “Daddy says God needed her.”

      J.J. felt as though she’d just been punched in the stomach, very hard, and her emotions made another wide swing. She felt all color drain from her face and her mouth was full of cotton. Her first impulse was to take the little girl into her arms, but that was impossible, and after the first move toward doing exactly that, she pulled back. She couldn’t do it. She hardly knew her. And though the youngster was very friendly, something told her she didn’t want to be hugged.

      “I. I’m sure your daddy is right,” she said instead.

      Jack a widower—that was something she hadn’t expected. It put a whole new light on things, but it was going to take her a few minutes to sort out just how. Poor man. Poor Annie. She ached inside for both of them. Hesitating, she was about to try to say something comforting, but before she got the words out, her telephone began to ring, and she swung around as though there’d been a reprieve.

      “Bye,” Annie said, starting toward the doorway.

      “Goodbye, Annie,” J.J. said on her way to the telephone. But something made her pause. The child had just told her something so horrible, she hated to see her skip off this way. “Listen,” she added, hesitating. She felt as though she needed to do something for her, but she had no idea what that might be.

      “I live right next door. You come on over if you need anything, okay? I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.”

      Annie waved and disappeared out the door, and J.J. hurried back into the kitchen, reaching for the phone.

      “Hello?”

      The deep voice of the handsome sportscaster at the station answered. Martin Olsen had made his interest plain earlier in the day, but she wasn’t in the market for a new relationship right now. She had other things on her mind and goals she was determined to reach. So after a few moments of light banter, she politely declined his invitation to dinner and rang off.

      Going back to her open door, she looked out at the steps for Annie, but the girl was gone. Sighing, she closed the door and went back to the kitchen, methodically putting away the rest of the groceries. The situation with Jack and his daughter had disturbed her. She had no similar idea what the death of a wife and mother actually did to a family. She’d had no experience. But she knew it had to be horrific, and she winced, pushing away the emotions such a tragedy inspired.

      It was easier to think about Jack as a playboy with all these Bambis and Marguerites and who-knows-who-elses in his life when he had these little kids to care for, and get outraged about that. But even that exasperation was fading in her. After all, what could she do about the girl? It was re ally none of her business if Jack wanted to run around like a teenager with brand-new hormones. Maybe that happened to widowers. Maybe they needed it.

      Still, there had been such a haunted look in Annie’s eyes.

      Jack Remington. It was such a stroke of very bad luck to have ended up next door to the man who single-handedly had almost ruined her career before it had even begun. As she prepared a pot of lemon tea, she let her thoughts drift back to that summer ten years ago in Sacramento when she’d landed an intern job at a local television station. She’d been thrilled, even though the job had meant being handed every grubby little chore the others didn’t want to be bothered with. That was the way it was when you were low man on the totem pole, and she had been glad to put up with it for the experience and the pleasure of being in the business she adored.

      She’d spent the summer taking in every bit of knowledge she could glean. She’d watched Jack from afar. He’d been the star anchor at the station at the time, and everyone had treated him like a king. She’d been ecstatic when he smiled at her, but he’d only spoken to her once.

      It was late in the summer and she’d finally had a chance to go on camera with a newsbreak at the hour. She’d given it everything she had and most people had been generous with their praise. And then Jack had come sauntering along and looked her up and down, and she’d held her breath, waiting to hear what he had to say.

      “You’re a very pretty girl,” he said at last. “I’ll bet you were a cheerleader in high school, weren’t you?”

      Thinking he meant it as a compliment, she’d colored and smiled at him. “Why, yes, I was.”

      His mouth had twitched at the corners. “That’s what I thought,” he said, the scorn plain in his tone. “Well, let me give you a little bit of advice, Miss Jenkins. Pay a little more attention to the program your newsbreak is interrupting. In the movie playing tonight, a child has just been told he might never walk again. The viewers are crying their eyes out. And then you come on, grinning like a loon and shouting out the news item as though it were the main cheer at a pep rally.” He shook his head. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Miss Jenkins, if you think you’re going to get anywhere in this business.”

      He’d walked away, leaving her behind in a humiliated heap. Not only had he hated her style, he hadn’t remembered her name right. No one met her eyes for the rest of the day, and the next morning she was told her services were no longer needed at the station.

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