Smooth Talking Stranger Read Online Free PDF Page B

you
don’t
know.”
    “Believe me,” I muttered, “I’m the first one to admit that I have no clue about any of this stuff. I had nothing to do with it. This isn’t my baby.”
    “Then give it to Social Services.” She was getting agitated. “Whatever happens to him will be your fault, not mine. Get rid of him if you can’t handle the responsibility.”
    “I can handle it,” I said, my voice quiet. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll take care of him. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
    She subsided like a child who had just been mollified by a lollipop. “You’ll have to learn the way I did,” she said after a moment, reaching down to adjust her toe ring. A hint of satisfaction edged her tone as she added, “The hard way.”

    The day was already blazing, i took luke into the discount store, while he squalled up and down the aisles, writhing angrily in the ragged foam-lined infant seat that was bolted to the handles of the basket. Luke finally quieted when we left, soothed by the vibration of the basket wheels as they rattled over the rough asphalt of the parking lot.
    The outside air was roasting-hot, while the indoors’ were chilled by Arctic air-conditioning. As you went outside and inside, alternately sweating and drying, you were eventually covered in an invisible film of sticky salt. Luke and I were heated to the pink of boiled shrimp.
    And this was how I was going to meet Jack Travis.
    I called Liza, hoping she had managed to get his phone number.
    “Heidi wouldn’t give it to me,” Liza said, sounding disgruntled. “Talk about insecure—I think she’s scared I’m going to make a move on him! I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her about all the times I could have gone after him but didn’t on account of our friendship. ‘Sides, she knows as well as anyone that there’s plenty of Jack Travis to go around.”
    “It’s a wonder the man gets any sleep.”
    “Jack’s upfront about not being able to commit to one woman, so no one expects it of him. But Heidi’s been seeing him so long, I think she’s convinced herself she can get him to cough up an engagement ring.”
    “Like a hairball,” I said, entertained. “Well, good luck to her. But in the meantime, how am I going to get in touch with him?”
    “I don’t know, Ella. Short of just barging in there and asking to see him, I can’t think of anything.”
    “Fortunately I have excellent barging skills.”
    “I’d be careful,” my cousin said warily. “Jack’s a nice guy, but he’s not the kind you can push around.”
    “I wouldn’t think so,” I agreed, while my stomach tightened in a spasm of nerves.
    *      

    The traffic in Houston had its own mysterious patterns. Only keen familiarity and vast experience would allow you to maneuver through them. Naturally, Luke and I got caught in stop-and-start traffic that turned a fifteen-minute drive into a forty-five-minute one.
    By the time we reached the artful, glittering structure of 1800 Main, Luke was howling and a foul smell had filled the car, demonstrating that a baby will inevitably have a dirty diaper at the worst possible time in the worst possible place.
    I drove to the underground parking garage, the commercial half of which was completely full, and I had to drive out again. As I drove farther down the street, I found a public paying lot. After parking in one of the street-level spaces, I managed to change Luke’s diaper in the back seat of the Prius.
    The baby carrier seemed to weigh about a thousand pounds as I lugged it along the street to the building. Icy air hit me in a controlled blast as I entered the luxurious lobby, all marble and brushed steel and gleaming wood. After glancing at a glass-shielded directory of the office floors, I walked briskly by the reception desk. I knew there was no way they were going to let an unidentified woman with no appointment and no connections simply breeze through to the elevators.
    “Miss—” One of the men