Cradle and All Read Online Free PDF Page B

direction the conversation was suddenly going.
    “Turning into a real good waitress,” Lori said. “Glad you talked us into hiring her.”
    “She seems to take a lot of walks at night,” Phyllis said. “I’ve seen her out in all weather.”
    “She works hard,” Lori declared almost defensively. “I don’t see anything wrong with her wanting a little time to herself.”
    “Young girls shouldn’t be walking the streets alone at night,” Phyllis said.
    “She’s perfectly safe in the village.”
    “Don’t kid yourself,” Phyllis warned. “You never know who could be pulling off the highway.”
    The general store’s front bell tinkled as a couple came in, and Phyllis went off to wait on them.
    “I’ll check around the village to see if I can round up some baby clothes,” Lori said. “Never can have enough.”
    “Would it be possible to send Trudi by with the crib?” Tom asked. “I’d like to talk to her.”
    “Sure thing,” Lori said. “And remember, Burt and I have raised five babies of our own. You need any help, you come see us.”
    After Lori had left, Anne sent Tom an accusing look. “Either one of those women could have helped you prepare this shopping list.”
    “But you were the one who was there when I needed it prepared,” Tom said as he pushed the shopping cart toward the baby carriers. “Besides, Tommy obviously prefers you.”
    * * *
    “O KAY , I ADMIT MY curiosity has gotten the better of me,” Anne said as Tom put the last of the supplies in the back of his sleek, midnight blue sports car. “Where did a priest get a Porsche?”
    “An addiction from my previous life,” Tom confessed as he closed the back. He walked around and opened the passenger side for Anne.
    “What did you do in this previous life?” she asked.
    “I was in construction.”
    Her eyes glinted up at him. “I don’t believe it.”
    “Shall I invite you over to see my power tools?”
    A reluctant smile tugged on the corners of her lips. “I would think that a guy who wore a hard hat would be into trucks.”
    “Known a lot of guys in hard hats, have you?”
    Anne flashed him a warning look before leaning into the back to place the baby in his car seat. “As strange as it is to picture you on the other end of a pile driver, I suppose it’s as likely as your being a priest.”
    “Oh? How so?” Tom asked.
    “Well, you have to admit you don’t look like a priest.”
    “What do I look like, Anne?”
    She twisted toward him and the sunlight fused with her hair—copper alloyed with gold. Her eyes turned a misty pearl as she studied him in rapt concentration, as though trying to decide. She had no idea how stunning she was, or how stunned he was by her.
    “Actually, you look like a bank robber I once prosecuted while I was working for the D.A.’s office,” Anne said.
    She turned away and busied herself with strapping in the baby.
    “And you saw that he was acquitted,” Tom said, unable to keep himself from baiting her.
    “I saw that he got twenty years,” she called over her shoulder. “Although, if he hadn’t been so good-looking, I might have gone for twenty-five.”
    Tom chuckled. She was intelligent, self-assured, beautiful, irreverent and attracted to him. He couldn’t think of a more alluring set of qualities.
    The baby began to wail again the moment he was out of Anne’s arms. Tom hated to hear his anguished sounds.
    Circling the car, he got into the driver’s side and started the engine, enjoying its pantherlike growl. Apparently, the baby did, too. Tommy stopped crying whenever the car was in motion. Just as he did when he was cradled in Anne’s arms.
    No doubt about it, the kid had great taste.
    “Give me your professional opinion about something?” Tom asked Anne as he spun the car away from the curb.
    “What?”
    “How would you go about finding someone? In an unofficial sort of way.”
    “You mean the baby’s mother, don’t you?” Anne asked.
    “Does it