Baby By Chance. M.J. Rodgers

the revelation.

      Susan didn’t answer. She’d already said more than she should have.

      He straightened and resumed his normal tone. “So that’s why things were so strained between you two then. And all the time I thought you were fighting over me.”

      “Don’t you wish,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad you’re concerned about Ellie. Why don’t you ask her out?”

      “Hell, no,” he said with feeling. “I told you. I’ve learned my lesson.”

      “Ellie’s no psycho.”

      “Yeah, but she’s got another serious problem. Incredibly bad taste in men.” With that Barry waved and left.

      She knew he was right. Put Ellie in a pitching boat in heavy seas and she could not only instantly determine the precise knots that two dolphins were swimming and how many feet away they were, but also the exact F-stop, shutter speed and fill-in flash required to perfectly capture them on film.

      But put Ellie in a room full of eligible men, and her brain would inevitably malfunction and she’d pair up with the worst possible choice.

      Susan’s thoughts were interrupted when her telephone rang. She picked it up and answered distractedly. “Susan Carter.”

      “David Knight.”

      She sat straight up in her chair, every cell in her body vibrating to attention.

      “I…uh…” Oh, that was erudite, Susan. Could you sound any more brain dead?

      “Can you talk?” David asked.

      “Apparently not,” she said with a small chuckle.

      “That wasn’t a jab at your verbal skills, Ms. Carter. I was attempting to ascertain if you were in a private place that would enable you to discuss personal matters freely.”

      He was cordial, but clearly all business. The gentle warmth that had imbued his voice the night before was nowhere in evidence.

      She had thought a lot about David after he left her home, and those thoughts had been disturbing. Her preoccupation with them seemed kind of foolish now, in light of his formal manner. Maybe she’d been so tired after her long day that she’d imagined what she’d seen in his eyes. Maybe she had imagined her response, as well.

      “Ms. Carter, did you hear my question?”

      “Sorry. My mind was on something else. Just a minute.”

      The four-foot partitions around her cubicle did nothing to mask conversations. She rose from her chair and stretched so as to camouflage her real reason for getting up, which was to see who was sitting on the other sides. As she had suspected, all around her cubicle were fellow employees frantically clicking their computer keys, getting articles and captions ready for the next issue.

      “The answer to your question is, not really,” she said into the phone as she sat back down and scooted her chair closer to her desk.

      “Probably just as well we meet. I’d like to show you something. Can you be outside the front of your building in five minutes?”

      She checked her watch. Four-thirty already? She needed the rest of her contact sheets from the guys in the darkroom. She also needed to select and crop the photos that would have to be printed. “Will this be a quick meeting?”

      “Should be. I’ll drive by and pick you up. Bring your coat and umbrella. The rain is coming down cold and hard.”

      Before she could respond, the dial tone blared in her ear. She shook her head as she hung up the phone. David was back to his all-business self, all right.

      She was relieved. This was not the time to be getting sidetracked by a man.

      Grabbing her shoulder bag, coat and umbrella, she made a dash for the rest room before heading down to the lobby. Exactly five minutes later, his silver truck slid alongside the curb in the front of the building. She used her umbrella as a shield as she dashed for the truck.

      He had the passenger door open by the time she got there. She hopped in sideways and pulled the umbrella closed, dropping it to the floor once she was settled on the seat. The moment she’d closed the passenger door and buckled up, the truck was rolling.

      “Are you always so punctual?” she asked as she looked over at him.

      He wore a brown leather jacket over a silver-blue dress shirt, brown dress slacks, and leather boots polished so brightly she could see the chrome beneath the brake pedal reflected in them.

      His eyes remained on the road when he answered. “Promptness is simply a part of keeping one’s word.”

      “What do you say to all the people who accuse you of being too rigid because you live your life by the clock?”

      “Probably the same thing you say to such people.”

      She wasn’t surprised that David had surmised she also was a “promptness freak,” as so many of her friends liked to call her. Not after all the other things he’d been able to deduce about her.

      “Okay, Mr. Detective, tell me what I say to those people.”

      “You say you’ll be somewhere at a particular time, and you are there at that time, because you care about them and wouldn’t think of wasting their valuable time by making them wait for you.”

      She chuckled. “Well, I may not have said that before, but I’m certainly going to say it from now on. Where are we going?”

      “Someplace private where you can look at a picture and answer a few questions.”

      The private place proved to be a parking facility located next to a nearby park. The heavy rain had driven away the park’s occupants, leaving the garage empty. David selected a space on the upper level with a view of the gray landscape but far enough within the structure’s overlapping roof that the rain wouldn’t pound on the truck.