Excuse Me? Whose Baby?: Excuse Me? Whose Baby? / Follow That Baby!. Jacqueline Diamond

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СКАЧАТЬ “I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your past generosity to our school.”

      “And I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed being an honorary Ph.D.” Jim, who’d never completed college, had been thrilled to receive the degree at graduation ceremonies last June. It honored his achievements in the fields of business and technology.

      “You earned it, buddy!” Wilson Martin spoke with a gung-ho attitude more reminiscent of a car salesman than of a university president. Right now, he would be sitting at his desk, brushing back the thick hair that he dyed silver to disguise the fact that he was only forty-two years old. “By the way, did you hear the tragic news about Dr. Saldivar?”

      “Something about an elephant, I gather.” Jim propped up his foot and retied one of his jogging shoes. He dressed comfortably whenever he didn’t have an important meeting.

      “Tragic loss,” Wilson said. “It was her dream to someday see us establish a medical school on campus.”

      It hadn’t taken the man long to work his way around to his longtime dream. Jim doubted it had also been Helene’s, but obviously she provided a convenient way of bringing up the subject.

      Well, Jim was a hundred million dollars richer, minus taxes. Why not make a sizable donation? He was on the verge of proposing it when something occurred to him.

      He had a daughter. This money was hers, too.

      Not that he intended to spoil her. He considered it foolish to give young people huge amounts of money. Still, he felt for the first time as if he were the custodian of his wealth instead of its outright owner.

      “I’d be happy to look at some cost projections,” he said.

      “We’ll get right on them,” the president responded. “In any case, we’re always glad to see BVT prospering. It’s good for the community.”

      Jim was glad when the man rang off. Not that he disliked Wilson Martin, but Jim had other things on his mind. One in particular, and she was waiting in his outer office.

      He strode across the variegated carpet and went into the adjacent room. Between the fax machines, copiers and computers sat a portable playpen.

      Five women stood, leaned and knelt around the playpen, making cooing noises. Jim assumed they had wandered over to enjoy the unexpected visitor. He couldn’t even spot the tiny figure inside until he got close enough to see over the women’s shoulders.

      Ignoring a pile of stuffed animals and toys, Annie sat regarding the women around her with mingled interest and uncertainty. Someone had fixed tiny yellow ribbons in her hair, one of which had fallen out.

      As he approached, the little girl plopped onto her knees and crawled toward the fallen ribbon. Her audience responded with encouraging cries of, “Go for it!” and “You can do it, honey!”

      Jim cleared his throat. The response was electric. The five women swiveled, straightened, or—depending on their starting position—leaped to their feet. They weren’t afraid of him, but they did seem embarrassed to be caught making goo-goo eyes at a baby.

      “Congratulations, Jim!”

      “Way to go on the stock market!”

      “I guess I’ll be getting my new house soon!” This last remark was a reference to BVT’s stock-option program, which extended to all employees.

      Four of the women melted away and returned to their offices. Only his secretary, Lulu Lee, remained. “She’s so cute! I can’t believe how lucky you are!”

      He hadn’t told anyone who the mother was, only that he’d recently learned he had a daughter. People would talk, of course, but that couldn’t be helped.

      “I’m not sure those yellow ribbons are such a good idea,” Jim said. “Couldn’t she swallow one?”

      “Oh!” Lulu leaned in and snatched the fallen ribbon from the playpen. Then she began removing the others from Annie’s hair. “Willa from accounting put them on her.”

      Jim crouched next to the playpen. “How’s it going?” he asked the baby.

      “Ga ga da da.” She hoisted herself to her feet, hanging onto the rim of the playpen.

      He was lost. If there had been some other task Jim meant to accomplish today, he forgot it utterly.

      “Look at her!” he said. “Nine months old and she’s standing up! She must be some kind of genius.”

      “I wouldn’t doubt it.” Lulu gave him a teasing smile.

      “You don’t seem surprised. Do they all do that?”

      His secretary, who had long expressed a desire to have children if her boyfriend ever got around to popping the question, nodded sagely. “According to the books, they often stand by this age. Some children are even walking by now.”

      “They must be freaks of nature,” Jim said. “If Annie isn’t doing it, it can’t be normal.”

      “She’s a bright child,” Lulu said. “I wonder where she got that hair.”

      It was as far as his secretary would go toward prying. Jim made a mental note never to let her catch a glimpse of Dex. Lulu’s hair was lustrously straight and black, bespeaking her Chinese heritage.

      It was only natural for her to be curious about Annie’s mother, he reminded himself. “Must be a throw-back,” he said, in response to her statement. “I think my great-grandmother stuck her finger in a light socket once.”

      Then he remembered that this little girl would someday inherit the company. It wasn’t too soon to prepare her for taking the reins of command. “I’m going to give her a tour of the facilities.”

      “I’m sure she’ll enjoy that,” Lulu said.

      Annie did. For the first five minutes, she took a keen interest in all the blinking computers and admiring employees.

      Jim’s tale of how he’d started the company in a garage, moved to a leased plant and finally built this facility quickly bored the baby. She yawned. Then she drooped against his shoulder.

      “Nap time,” said one of the women engineers.

      Jim had forgotten that babies needed naps. No wonder this one was exhausted. She’d had a long day, and it wasn’t even five o’clock yet.

      He took her out to his covered parking spot. This afternoon, he’d brought the European sedan with an infant seat installed in the back. Strapping a sleepy baby into it turned out to be a challenge, but he was getting used to manipulating her tiny limbs.

      When his nose brushed her cheek, he discovered that she smelled like Dex and was startled to realize he missed the woman. Missed her mentally and physically.

      Thinking about her was dangerous. For safety, Jim tried to focus on Nancy.

      As always, the image of his calm, self-possessed pal soothed him. After his mother died of cancer when he was fourteen, she’d been the friend he turned to for comfort and advice while his father СКАЧАТЬ