Daisy was fussing now, and Violet took her from Jake. “She’s hungry.”
During the exchange, he pressed his hand against the skin of her upper arm. She was sure he could feel her trembling.
“I’m just asking you to give me a fair chance. Get to know me before you tell me I’m not good enough to be Daisy’s father.”
She realized then why she was trembling. She was afraid. It might be easier to hate Jake, or at least dismiss him, if she
didn’t
get to know him better. Daisy’s eyelashes were darkened by tears, and so were Jake’s.
It took a tremendous effort of will to give the answer she knew he deserved. “I’ll try.”
“We’ll be able to see the main areas of the nursery — the changing table and crib — and the entire living room. Enough of the foyer is captured to show us if she lets anyone in.” Jake showed Violet the camera he’d placed in her living room bookcase, disguised as an ordinary book.
“I told her she can never have anyone over when she’s here alone with Daisy!”
“Exactly.”
Violet wrinkled her brow. “I wasn’t thinking anything truly awful was going on, but I suppose you never know.”
They gazed at Daisy, in Violet’s arms, and Jake placed his hand on her downy head. He was close enough for her to smell his soap. Or the soap belonging to the woman he’d spent the night with, although there was nothing feminine about the way Jake smelled.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice husky. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to our girl. Now, where’s the hardware that’s going to keep her from swallowing drain cleaner?”
The words “our girl” caused a lump to form in Violet’s throat. She knew having a husband and partner couldn’t guarantee Daisy’s safety, but sometimes it just seemed like too big an undertaking for one person to handle alone. Not sometimes — all the time. She handed Jake the shopping bag from the baby store containing every safety device they sold. “Cabinet and drawer latches, outlet plugs, and toilet lid locks so she won’t drown.”
“In the toilet? Do you know how many places in the world don’t even have indoor plumbing?”
“No, but I won’t be visiting any of them. And hearing about them all the time could really get on a person’s nerves.” Especially when that person had once dreamed of becoming a journalist who traveled to all those foreign destinations. The expression of horror on her mother’s face when she’d shared that dream had made her lock it away. Now, of course, there was Daisy to consider. Orlando, Florida would probably be her most exotic destination for the next two decades.
He laughed. “I probably talk too much about the places I’ve been … ”
“The lock will keep her from flushing away her toys and reduce my plumbing repair bills.” Violet also didn’t think she’d be able to give Jake the fair chance he’d asked for if she was constantly reminded of his wanderlust. “Why don’t I order our lunch while you do that. Vegetarian dishes, right?”
He grinned. “I don’t mind if you want to eat something with meat.”
So the carcinogens would kill her and he could have custody of Daisy? She ordered three vegetarian dishes just to be on the safe side, then stuffed the rest of yesterday’s pastries down the garbage disposal.
Jake installed a few of the latches, then left to pick up their food. Ten minutes later the doorbell rang, and Violet stowed Daisy in her baby seat under the play gym before going to let him in.
“That was fast … Richard!”
A very unexpected Richard Rayburn was standing on her front step. In his white pants, cream polo shirt, and deck shoes, he might have just stepped out of the pages of a yachting magazine. His thick hair gleamed with styling gel, and the scent of that and his cologne competed with the bouquet of yellow roses he was holding.
“What are you doing here?”
Richard stuck out his lower lip like a pouting teenager, but before she could smooth over her rudeness, Jake’s car pulled up to the curb.
“What’s
he
doing here?” Richard asked when he turned and saw him coming up the sidewalk carrying the bag of food.
“Well, he’s, Jake is …”
“I know he’s Daisy father. But I don’t see any reason for him to be hanging around, horning in on our time together.”
Our time together?
Violet wanted to slam the door shut on both men. Sure, they might bang on it and call her name for a while, but eventually they’d go away, right?
“What are you doing here, Rayburn? Did you win the top prize, or just Miss Congeniality?” Jake shoved past Richard and strode back to the kitchen, leaving the other man sputtering.
“What’s that supposed to mean, Macintyre?” he yelled after him.
“Richard, come inside.” Violet stepped aside for him to pass and closed the door. A quick glance at Daisy in the living room showed she was preoccupied with batting her hanging toys. “Jake is here to install a nanny-cam system for me, and child-safety latches.”
“For Pete’s sake, Violet, why don’t you just fire that woman if you’re worried about her? And I was going to install the latches for you.” His mellow anchorman voice trailed off into an unpleasant whine.
They followed Jake to the kitchen, where he was pulling plates out of the cupboard. Two plates.
Richard’s jaw fell open. “Is he living here?”
“No, of course not.”
Jake set the plates on the table, then opened the cabinet over the refrigerator and got down a vase. “You might want to put those in water,” he said to Richard. “They’re real, right?”
Richard shot her an accusing look, and she made a mental note to ask Jake later how he knew where she kept her vases.
“We agreed Jake can visit Daisy every Saturday.”
“But today is Sunday.”
The whine in Richard’s voice was getting as annoying as Jake’s stories about how the rest of the world lived. She took another plate from the cupboard and set it on the table with the others. “Join us for lunch, Richard, we have plenty.”
He walked closer to the table and examined the containers Jake was opening, his face twisting into a suspicious grimace. “What is that?”
“Curry,” Jake replied, “and there’s no meat.”
“No meat? What kind of a man doesn’t eat meat?”
“I wasn’t always a vegetarian. I’ve eaten meat you’ve never even heard of, Rayburn. Once when I was in Australia, I ate the eyes and brain of a …”
“Jake! Please don’t go there, I beg you.” A throbbing started over Violet’s right eye, something that only happened when she was very tired, or very stressed. Right now she was both. She sank into one of the chairs and rubbed her temples.
Jake spooned vegetables onto her plate, but she’d lost her appetite. Daisy whimpered in the other room. She stood to go to her, but found her way blocked by both men, who were, if she could believe her eyes, shoving each other.
“I’ll go, I’m her father.”
“Oh, yeah? I held Daisy in the hospital the day after she was born. Where were you then, Macintyre?”
“Freeze!” Violet’s command made both men and Daisy all fall silent. “I’ll take care of the baby, because I’m the only adult here. You two should leave, and not come back until you can behave.”
She went into the other room and picked up the baby, who had resumed her crying at an even higher decibel level. When she returned to the kitchen, neither man had moved.
“And one more thing. If you’re ever both in my house at the same time again, God forbid, you’re to call each other by your first names.”
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard them laughing, but she’d rather die an old maid than go back down and deal with them.
• • •
It wasn’t until his editor reprimanded him about it at their Wednesday morning meeting that Jake even remembered he
had
a cell phone. “I left a message at your brother’s. He called me back and said he didn’t know where you were.”
He dug into his backpack and found the flip phone. Of course its battery was dead. “Sorry. I’ve been staying at a hotel the last few days.”
Mark glared at him. He was used to Jake being unavailable when he was out of the country, but expected him to be accessible when he was in Boston. “Nice of you to share that information with me.”
There were seventeen messages on the phone. A quick glance showed that most of them were from Jamie, Mark, or Millie, his agent. He’d have to deal with them later. Right now, he had to get to Violet’s while there was still time to review the nanny-cam recordings before Carrie returned from her half-day off.
“I promise I’ll leave my cell phone on,” he told his editor as he stuffed the folders he’d given him into his backpack.
“And charged!” Mark yelled after him.
• • •
“How long do we have?” Jake asked Violet when she opened her door twenty minutes later.
“At least two hours. I gave Carrie extra time so she could see her eye doctor. Somehow she managed to walk into an open cabinet door yesterday, and today her eye is swollen and bruised. On top of all that, she came back from her weekend off with a cold, and I’m afraid Daisy will catch it.”
Daisy was still taking her morning nap, so Jake started by removing the memory card from the camera he had planted in the living room.
“Jake, there’s something I want to ask you.”
Her tone was so serious that he turned away from the camera to examine her face. The expression on it was equally grave. Had she changed her mind about letting him see Daisy? Although he would fight her if she did, his heart sank at the prospect of the two of them becoming adversaries.
“Go ahead.”
“How did you know where I kept the vases?”
The vases? That was all? He laughed and returned to his work. “Everyone keeps their vases in the cabinet over the refrigerator.”
He’d made an educated guess, knowing if he was right it would make Rayburn think he was at least a regular visitor to Violet’s townhouse. Remembering the other man’s enraged reaction to his stunt made him smile. He didn’t want Rayburn to be Daisy’s father, and, if he admitted the truth, he didn’t want him to be Violet’s husband, or even her lover, either. Jake was a keen observer of body language, and he’d bet that the only place Rayburn had been Violet’s lover so far was in his dreams.
At least until he and Violet had a chance to get to know each other better, he’d do whatever it took to keep it that way.
They heard a yawn over the baby monitor, and then Daisy’s babbling. He followed Violet up the stairs, enjoying the view of her legs in denim shorts. When they got to the nursery, he walked in first and was greeted by Daisy’s whole-body grin when he spoke her name.
By the time Violet had the baby changed, his laptop was up and running on the coffee table. They sat side-by-side on the sofa and waited to see the first motion the camera had detected on Monday morning. Daisy stirred, and Violet, wearing a white nightgown, appeared within moments to pick her up.
“The two of you could be an ad for something,” he said to Violet. “Baby products, or maybe shampoo.” He watched as Violet settled in the glider with Daisy and began to undo the buttons at her bodice.
“Umm, fast forward, please.”
He did, trying to hide his grin.
In the next segment, Carrie placed the baby in her crib at naptime. Forty-five minutes later Daisy made the same small waking-up movements as she had at the beginning of the recording, but no one appeared until it was obvious she was in full-blown distress, crying and thrashing.
“Where is she?” Violet put her hands to her face as though she wanted to cover her eyes. Tears were visible on the baby’s face.
Finally the nanny appeared, holding a cell phone to her ear. She pinned it against her shoulder just long enough to pick up the screaming baby, then held her awkwardly with one arm. Although they couldn’t hear what she was saying, it was apparent from her facial contortions that it was an unpleasant conversation. Then she disappeared from view, and the screen turned to snow.
When it began again, the time display said it was an hour later. Carrie — minus the phone this time — walked into the nursery and placed the baby on the changing table, where she proceeded to diaper and dress her. Daisy kicked her legs, but didn’t smile at the nanny or try to make eye contact.
“She waited an hour to change her after her nap?” Violet’s forehead was furrowed. “It’s not a crime, but it’s certainly not what I expect from the person I pay to care for my child.” In real-time, Daisy was starting to whimper and pull at Violet’s shirt.
“Why don’t you feed her while I scan the rest? If there’s anything interesting, I’ll let you know.”
As far as Jake was concerned, they’d seen enough to fire Carrie. What he saw ten minutes later, however, made him wonder if they needed to do even more than that. “Violet?” he called up the stairs. “I think you’ll want to see this.”
• • •
Violet draped a blanket over the baby, who was still nursing, and returned to the living room. She found Jake literally sitting on the edge of his seat.
“Are you ready?” he asked her.
“What is it? She didn’t hurt Daisy, did she?” The baby squirmed, feeling her tension. She forced a breath deep into her lungs, trying to relax so her milk wouldn’t dry up.
“No.” Jake reached over and squeezed her hand, then let it go and pressed “enter” on the keyboard.
The screen showed Carrie walking into the living room carrying Daisy. She set her down, much too roughly in Violet’s opinion, on the play mat, then hurried into the foyer. After checking through the peephole, she opened the front door. A tall man entered and slapped Carrie across the face, hard enough to make her lose her balance and hit the wall.
Violet gasped and recoiled as though he had slapped
her
. As she watched, afraid of what she would see but unable to look away, Carrie tried to cover both her head and her upper body with her arms. The man appeared to be yelling, and his contorted face was inches away from hers.
“I believed her story about walking into a door! I was afraid she’d try to sue me. How could I be so naïve?”
Jake pressed a key and the computer’s desktop appeared. “What’s happening to that girl isn’t something that happens in your world.” His voice was soft.