It Takes a Baby (Superromance) Read online

  “Who the hell are you?”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Also by

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Kathleen Yardley.”

  “What are you doing with my daughter?” Booth demanded.

  Kathleen glanced at the sleeping child “Shh. She just fell asleep. Please lower your voice.”

  “Maybe I’m not making my questions clear enough,” Booth muttered. “Let’s try this. Where’s Mrs. Carmody?”

  At the sound of her name, Mavis Carmody entered the room, shaking her head at him. “Booth, do you have to bluster like a prison warden? You should be thanking Kathleen instead of yelling at her as if she were some common criminal.”

  Kathleen’s face paled.

  Booth, trying to quiet Lisa again, merely said, “I was not yelling.

  “Yes, you were. Just like you used to when you were a little boy and didn’t get your own way”

  Kathleen smiled at the older woman. “I wonder why I’m not surprised that Mr. Rawlings was a difficult child. Just an observation, of course.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to make an observation,” he countered, “but we could easily remedy that”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dee Holmes, a much-published author of both fiction and nonfiction, won her first major award, a RITA, in 1991 for her first novel, Black Horse Island. She has been writing steadily ever since.

  Dee’s books often feature the picturesque setting of New England, which isn’t surprising, since she is a longtime resident of Rhode Island. She has a grown son and daughter.

  Books by Dee Holmes

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  699—HIS RUNAWAY SON

  732—PROTECTING MOLLY McCULLOCH

  Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., PO. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  IT TAKES A BABY

  Dee Holmes

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  PROLOGUE

  KATHLEEN HANES knew that returning to the house for the forgotten box of her mother’s treasures and sheet music was stupid and dangerous. But as drunk and raging as her husband had been when she’d fled a few hours ago, she was fairly certain he would be passed out on the floor.

  Steve was nothing if not predictable. Drink, rage, drink some more and then pass out. She’d witnessed the pattern too often to believe this time would be any different.

  When she turned the car into the long road that led to the Wyoming ranch, her pulse sped up and she slowed to a stop before the final bend. She was some distance from the house, but she felt less exposed here. She parked so that she could drive straight out, and she left the engine running. The old Buick could be cantankerous at times, and she didn’t want to take any chances.

  For more than a year, her life had become a series of preparations, of ways of calculating escape, while still hoping that Steve would change. Then had come the terrifying realization, over the past few days, that if she stayed he would kill her, and maybe himself.

  Kathleen drew closer to the house. The late-afternoon sun burned red in the western sky. The sheriff’s car and a pickup truck were parked behind Steve’s patrol car. The truck looked like Cory’s—one of the deputies Kathleen liked. Most of the men who worked in the Rodeo, Wyoming, sheriff’s office were like backroom-poker pals. If you weren’t an insider, then what you said or did meant nothing to them. She’d learned that when she’d called the sheriff after Steve had beaten her. His attitude had been one of patient boredom. The unspoken message was “Cops stick together—we don’t rat on one of our guys.”

  At that point, Kathleen had lost any illusions about “service and honor and protection,”—those impassioned words spoken at parades by elected officials. Steve, her husband of five years, was one of Rodeo’s deputies.

  At noon today, he’d awakened and started drinking. Kathleen had left him with his bottle and methodically packed her things in the car. When he’d come weaving into the bedroom and realized she was leaving, he’d hit her, then had gone to get his revolver. Kathleen had managed to get to the car, but not before he’d fired two shots at her.

  Now, four hours later, all she wanted was her sheet music and the ivory-and-gold cameo. They were the only tangible links she had to her mother, and she couldn’t leave them for Steve to destroy. He’d already done that to her trust and her hope and all her ideals about love and marriage and children. Besides, if he was busy with his buddies, she could get in and get out without him even knowing.

  Drawing closer to the front door, she heard voices in the living room. A radio played rock music—Steve’s favorite. Cory was probably trying to get Steve sober enough to go to work.

  She made her way around to the back door and very quietly opened it, walked through the kitchen and down the hallway to the bedroom. She barely glanced at the double bed with its wedding-ring quilt or at Steve’s messy dresser. She went to the closet and took out a flat cardboard blouse box from Shelly’s Dress Shop. She made her way back to the kitchen.

  The door between the kitchen and living room had been opened wider, and for a few seconds Kathleen feared she would be noticed. She stood, counting to twenty, as the voices resumed. They were coming from the living room. She inched along the wall, then paused to glance into the living room to make sure the men weren’t looking in her direction. They weren’t.

  Cory and the sheriff, Buck Faswell, stood near Steve. He lay crumpled on the floor. Passed out, Kathleen thought. Then she saw the blood.

  She stared, her eyes widening in horror before she clamped her hand over her mouth to stop the gasp.

  What had happened? He’d been drunk and out of control when she’d fled the house, but he had also been very much alive. Had he shot himself?

  “So what’s your guess?” Cory asked.

  “A couple of hours. I talked to him this morning.”

  Kathleen was about to come forward and say he’d been alive four hours ago.

  But before she took a step, Cory said, “No, not when. I meant your guess on who did this.”

  “A no-brainer. His wife.”

  “Kathleen?”

  “Who has a better motive? She claimed he beat her. She went off to that safe house a couple of times. They had an argument just two days ago. I also heard she bought a gun.”

  She stood glued in place, her chest swelling painfully to keep down the shout of “No!” She couldn’t move.

  “Kathleen kill him? No way.”

  Oh, Cory, thank you, she thought, but the sheriffs next words chilled her to the bone.

  “Got it straight from Steve.”

  “Steve told you she planned to kill him?”

  “Just this morning.”

  Liar! Steve had slept until noon. He’d been off duty the night before, played poker down
at the old Palace Saloon until 3:00 a.m., then come home drunk and fallen into bed. Which was where he’d been until noon when he started drinking again.

  Cory took off his hat and scratched his head. “Gotta say, it’s pretty unbelievable. Kathleen didn’t strike me as the violent type. Remember how she played all that classical stuff on the piano?”

  “No doubt her prints are on the murder weapon,” the sheriff said, ignoring Cory’s words. Faswell reached down, slid a table knife through the trigger guard and lifted the pistol, placing it in a plastic bag.

  “Hey, shouldn’t we be dusting that first?”

  “Do it back in town.” Faswell walked around the body, stooped down, rolled it a bit and reached beneath it. A few seconds later, he stood. In his hand was a blood-smeared note. “She planned to leave him, or so this note says. Seems pretty clear. He caught her before she left, tried to make her change her mind. She refused, so he threatened her or something like that, and she got this here gun and shot him.”

  “I don’t know. Steve wasn’t some dunderhead. He had his own weapon. Hard to believe she’d be able to train a gun on him before he moved on her.”

  “Well, you work on how she did it,” Faswell told Cory as if a good story was more important than the truth. “No wide-eyed babe is gonna screw me up. You just make sure the arrest warrant is issued and that when she’s brought in, we got a case with no holes.”

  Cory looked stunned.

  “You got a problem, kid?”

  “You’re going to frame Kathleen for Steve’s murder.”

  “Frame? No one has to frame the guilty person.”

  “But you don’t know if Kathleen did this. There’ve been no charges yet, no trial, no witnesses.”

  The sheriff ignored that, turning to another deputy, who stood in the shadows. “Find her. Get on the radio, and get some roadblocks set up. I want her brought in, and I want a confession. We owe it to Steve’s family to get this little bitch locked up and put away for the rest of her life.”

  Somehow, Kathleen got outside safely. Escape. She had to escape. Clutching the box, she darted to her left, making a wide sweep to stay clear of the windows at the front of the house. She didn’t have time to think, to figure out what had happened or who killed Steve, and why.

  She got to the Buick, slid inside, put it in gear and drove out the long driveway. Her one hope was back roads. It would take twice as long, but she would avoid the highway.

  She kept glancing in her rearview mirror, expecting flashing lights and sirens. But the road behind her stretched empty and silent.

  The relief should have been sweet, but what about tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

  My God. She was a fugitive—on the run for something she didn’t do. And the police were the enemy.

  CHAPTER ONE

  KILLER! SHE’S A KILLER. She should burn in hell!

  Kathleen Yardley Hanes tossed, her body damp. She heard the voices shouting, screaming. Then the crying.

  The voices faded, but the crying wouldn’t stop.

  She turned over in the double bed, wrapping the pillow around her head to block the noise invading her subconscious. Her dream seemed so real. She was standing in the concert-hall wings, dressed in a white-trimmed lavender dress, about to walk on stage to play a grand piano before a sellout crowd. But there were the shouts of police after her, and the crowd was yelling, “Killer!”

  Then silence. Followed by more cries from a wailing baby. The faraway sounds kept breaking through her consciousness until finally she awoke.

  The early morning hours in Crosby, Connecticut, in July were warm and usually silent. She lay still for a few seconds, banishing the too-familiar nightmare, and listened. It was 1:25 a.m., according to the clock radio. The crying was coming from an upstairs apartment. She wondered if the parents were immune or if they believed in that silly theory about letting a child cry itself to sleep.

  Don’t interfere, an inner voice cautioned. Just as quickly, another voice reminded her of all the horrid scenarios on the evening news where no one had cared enough to get involved.

  Kathleen knew about needing help and having no one to count on, no one to trust. It had been many weeks since she’d fled Wyoming, and she felt no more tree or safe now than she had when she’d overheard the plan to frame her for her husband’s murder.

  She rubbed her eyes with her fists, closing out the lurking demons. She had to make sure the baby was all right; otherwise she’d never get back to sleep.

  Quickly Kathleen pulled on cotton shorts beneath her nightie, added a lightweight sweatshirt and slipped her feet into canvas sandals. She found her keys, locked the apartment door and climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  There were only two apartments upstairs. Leaning against the hall wall of the closest one was a cardboard carton with a toy box on the front. The crying had ebbed to an exhausted sobbing.

  The door was slightly ajar, and Kathleen tried to shake off a sense of foreboding. This was nuts, she thought. She had no idea what she was walking into. Suicide. Murder. Someone badly beaten and incapable of tending the child? Still, she couldn’t turn away. She had to find the baby.

  She stepped inside. The apartment was dim except for the soft light from a floor lamp beside a rocking chair. Someone obviously loved clocks, for there was a collection of miniature ones displayed on a rolltop desk. The assembled toy box sat nearby, a pink jungle-print quilt tossed across the cushioned top. Newspapers were neatly bundled by the door for recycling. The crying came from a darkened room to her right.

  Kathleen started forward, past a green plaid couch, then jumped when she caught sight of the elderly woman stretched out on it, her face turned sideways.

  Was she dead? Was that why she hadn’t heard the infant? Kathleen was about to approach her when she heard a snore. Relief rushed through her. The woman might be hurt, but she was alive. Right now, though, Kathleen had to check on the baby.

  She followed its wail, knowing she would forever hear it in her dreams. In the nursery, a teddy bear nightlight glowed beside the change table, incongruous, somehow, under the circumstances.

  She moved to a wooden-spindle crib that looked like a family heirloom. The child, who appeared to be about a year old, sat in the middle, nose running, hiccuping, sobbing sporadically. When Kathleen reached down and lifted the baby, she felt its flushed warmth and dampness.

  “Shh. It’s okay now. You’re okay,” she whispered. She held the chubby little body close, inhaling the sweet scent of skin and lotion, rubbing its back and murmuring against its ear. The child quieted. Kathleen switched on a lamp and laid the baby on the change table.

  Blinking and skewering up its face at the invasion of light, it didn’t appear to be hurt, just frustrated that all its crying hadn’t brought attention sooner. In a few moments the child stilled, staring up at Kathleen and smiling.

  “What a charmer you are. I’ll bet a lot of that noise was because you need to be changed, don’t you?” The baby followed Kathleen’s motions as she quickly got the wet disposable off, then cleaned, powdered and put on a dry diaper. “Now, that has to feel better, doesn’t it?”

  The baby girl smiled again, reaching for Kathleen’s silver bracelet. She gripped the wide band and tugged. “I bet you’ll have this right in your mouth if I give it to you, won’t you? I see a few teeth, and I bet there are more coming.” The baby grinned, then giggled aloud. Kathleen’s heart was captured. Suddenly her apprehension fled. The older woman had simply fallen asleep; this was no abused child.

  “You are a precious bundle, you know that?” She brushed her fingers down the soft cheek, and was rewarded with another smile. “Is that your grandma out there on the couch? Mommy and Daddy are out, I’ll bet. Maybe on a long-deserved night by themselves?” She lifted the baby, holding her securely, and walked back out to the living room. The woman awakened. She shrank back against the couch, her eyes pools of fear when she saw Kathleen.

  “Who are you and what are you doing
with Lisa?” the woman asked.

  “Lisa has been crying for a long time.”

  “Crying?” She raised her hand to the side of her head.

  “Yes. Babies have a habit of doing that when they’re uncomfortable. And if no one comes, they tend to cry louder.” Kathleen knew she sounded short and too sarcastic, but what good was a baby-sitter who didn’t tend to the baby?

  “But where did you come from,?”

  “Downstairs. Her crying woke me up. And the door was unlocked.”

  “Oh, dear. I must have fallen asleep wrong.” The older woman rose to her feet, straightening a cotton print dress, her hands moving to her silver hair. Kathleen noted an elaborate ring with multicolored stones, and hands with fingernails that had been recently manicured. She stared for a few seconds. The last manicure she’d had was before her wedding. How innocent she’d been in her Virgin Rose nail polish with her wide-eyed hope for the future.

  The woman walked toward Kathleen and patted Lisa. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. All that crying probably made you hungry. I’ll fix a bottle for you.”

  “You said something about falling asleep wrong?” Kathleen asked, putting aside her regrets.

  “What? Oh, yes. That’s why I didn’t hear her crying.”

  Obviously, Kathleen wanted to say. Instead she changed tactics. “Are you Lisa’s grandmother?”

  “Oh, no. That would be Janet. She and her husband, Doug, went to the Cape for the week. He’s retired. Used to be Crosby’s police chief. Janet and I are bridge partners. Been playing every Thursday since the late fifties. I don’t usually keep Lisa, but Darlene—she’s Booth’s sister, and just between you and me, a bit flighty—can’t seem to settle down and find herself a husband. Do you know she’s been engaged three times to three different men? Anyway, poor thing came down with one of those dreadful summer colds, and she was afraid she’d pass the germs on to little Lisa, so I was a last-minute fill-in.”