The Baby Pursuit. Laurie Paige

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СКАЧАТЬ off on an adventure, teaching health and helping children on some tiny island republic off the coast of South America. Vanessa liked things closer to home.

      Carefully carrying the tray back to the study, Vanessa had a sudden yearning to see her twin and confide all the hopes and misgivings of her heart. Only Victoria would understand completely…

      “Come in,” Dev called when she tapped the door with the toe of her shoe.

      “I can’t open the door,” she muttered, and heard the note of complaint in her tone. Right. How to win friends and influence your enemies: be a grouch.

      The heavy portal opened. She entered the study. “Clear the desk,” she ordered.

      He stacked his papers neatly to one side. She balanced the tray on the corner of the desk and spread the feast on the open space. She pulled the chair to the side and took her place. Dev took his position behind the desk.

      “You look quite at home there,” she told him. “My father might get jealous. The lord of the manor used to sit there and dole out justice to my brothers and us.”

      “Us?” he said.

      “Victoria and myself.”

      “You were always a pair?”

      “Of course. We were twins. What one did, the other did, too.” She grinned. “We thought we had it all worked out when we decided that one of us should study for the biology test and the other for English finals when we entered high school. Since we had been assigned to different classes, we thought we could simply swap and each take the same test twice.”

      “Did it work?”

      “Yes.” She grimaced. “But about halfway through our freshman year, the English teacher caught on when someone spilled milk on Victoria. My dress was dry when I went in to take the test right after lunch. My dad grounded us for the entire semester after that.”

      “Tough,” he said. He even looked sympathetic as well as amused. He took a bite out of his sandwich.

      Vanessa ate, too, aware of the quiet that surrounded them. Her father was in town, probably visiting Lily. Matthew and Claudia had moved out of their house in town and back to the ranch to escape the prying eyes of the paparazzi who had hounded them since the kidnapping. There was still speculation on prime time news about the situation. The couple had taken up residence in the wing formerly occupied by Uncle Cameron’s family before he and Aunt Mary Ellen had built their own house.

      “Why isn’t Savannah Clark’s name on the list?” Dev asked, breaking into her musings.

      “I forgot about her,” Vanessa admitted. “She wasn’t on the guest list for the christening since I had invited her down to visit with me for the week.”

      “Did she date any of your brothers?”

      “Heavens, no. She and I were roommates in college. She didn’t know my family before then. I wouldn’t wish my brothers on any unsuspecting female.”

      He didn’t seem to see the humor in her statement. His thick black brows drew closer over the beautiful summery blue of his eyes.

      “She’s a teacher in Dallas?”

      Vanessa paused before answering. “Yes. How did you know that?” She reached for the list.

      He moved it out of her grasp.

      “Tell me about that day. Start right after the christening and tell me everyone you spoke with and where you were at the time. Picture it in your mind.”

      “Perhaps you’d like me to use self-hypnosis and regression?” she suggested, annoyed at his excluding her from his confidence, especially when she had already told him all she could remember at least three times.

      “Just what you recall will be fine.” He pulled a legal pad toward him.

      He was being very distant and crisp with her this morning. It was a denial of the attraction between them and the magic of those moments in her bedroom.

      “How did you know about Savannah?” she asked.

      “The sheriff filled me in.”

      It was foolish to feel personally rejected, but she did. She knew this was an investigation. He was doing his job. Still, he could have told her what he had in mind.

      The terrible despair she’d felt upon realizing the baby was really gone fell upon her. Her eyes ached with unshed tears. She took a steadying breath.

      “Savannah and I stood directly behind my father and Lily…Lily Redgrove Cassidy. I forgot to put her down, too. She’s Dad’s fiancée.”

      “When his divorce from his present wife—Sophia—is final,” Dev reminded her, his tone without inflection. He tugged his tie loose, then tossed it to the chair that held his jacket.

      “Sometimes I wish Sophia would choke on a chicken bone.”

      Her comment brought a flicker of emotion to his eyes. It wasn’t fair for a man to have eyes like that, Vanessa thought, eyes so beautiful they made a woman melt whenever he looked her way—even when he was frowning rather ominously, as he was at her right now.

      “Just kidding,” she added.

      “I wouldn’t,” he said without a smidgen of a smile. “Things sometimes have a way of coming true, and then you’re sorry for your evil thoughts.”

      “Were you?” she asked with sudden insight.

      “What?”

      “Sorry when what you wished came true.”

      His face hardened into a mask. “No.”

      “What was it?”

      “I wished my father would die.”

      “And he did?”

      “Coming home drunk one night, he ran into a truck. I’d wished for it a hundred times.”

      “Did he hit you and your mother?”

      His hesitation was noticeable. “Yes.”

      She understood the darkness in him now. “It wasn’t your fault. Your mother was the adult. It was her job to protect you, not the other way around. She chose to stay instead of leaving your father.”

      “That’s easier said than done.”

      “I didn’t say it was easy, only that she made a choice each time she could have left and didn’t.”

      The muscles tightened in his jaw, but he didn’t say anything else.

      “You won’t always close me out,” she vowed.

      “Don’t confuse me with one of your psychology projects,” he advised. “My life isn’t open for study.”

      “I don’t have to study it. I know all СКАЧАТЬ