Daddy By Design?. Kate Thomas

mask. “I know you miss her. I swear I’ll bring her up to see you.” She bit the bullet. “Or why don’t y’all come down here?”

      “Ruth won’t cross the Mason-Dixon Line. You know that.”

      “Then come without her.” As she listened to Papa Rick telling her all the reasons why he couldn’t come without his wife, Cinda rushed into her gourmet kitchen and snatched a paper towel off the roll. She next opened a drawer of the built-in desk and found a permanent laundry marker. “Oh, sure you can. Just tell your pilot where you want to go, and he’ll fly you here.”

      “That’s true. I could do that.”

      “See?” Using her teeth, and praying she didn’t get the indelible ink all over her face in the process—she could see a dermatologist having to sand that off—she bit down on the pen, spit the lid out, and said, “Okay, I’m ready. Go ahead.” She smoothed the paper towel atop the granite breakfast bar and waited. “Papa Rick?”

      “Shh. Hold on. I think I hear Ruth coming downstairs.”

      Dread swept through Cinda and had her gripping the phone tighter. It was like they were conspirators in the French Resistance. “Then hurry, Papa Rick. Give me the name and the number really quick, okay?”

      Talking to this dear man was like trying to communicate with a cat—you could, but you had to do it carefully and patiently and with a lot of cajoling. Yet it still might not work, anyway.

      “No. It wasn’t her. Must have been the dog.”

      Cinda grimaced her distaste. Calling Ruth’s nasty-tempered little dust-mop of a yappy, biting lap ornament a “dog” was really using the term loosely. “So who was this Southern gentleman who called for me, Papa Rick?”

      “I hate that dog. It bites my ankles and shreds all the hems in my pants—while I’m wearing them.”

      “I know. I hate Empress, too. She’s got an attitude problem. Now, who was it you said phoned me?” Much more of this, Cinda knew, and it would be three days since Trey had called. If it had been Trey who had called at all.

      “Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t told you yet, have I? Okay, here it is. Let me see now. A Mr. Trey—now, that can’t be right. People in the South don’t name their children after parts of the silver service, do they?”

      It was Trey. Dear God, it was Trey. Cinda feared she would burst into flames, she was so giddy with excitement. Still she managed to sound sane when she replied. “Yes. Down here they do. I know actual children named Cream and Sugar.” Of course it wasn’t true, but it was a shorter explanation—and one this blue-blooded, harmless Yankee would believe. “So…Trey who?” she added to maintain her air of innocence.

      “Cooper is what I wrote down. And this next part is serious. Miss Reeves said to tell you that Mr. Cooper said his life needed to be saved. Does that mean anything to you?”

      Cinda barely covered her gasp. Trey Cooper was calling in his favor. “Uh, maybe. Give me his number, and I’ll try him right now, okay?”

      “That’s a good idea. I just hope it’s not too late. He could be dead by now. But anyway, here it is.” He finally read her the telephone number.

      Maddeningly, Cinda’s fingers didn’t want to work in concert with her brain. She was too excited, too nervous. She had to ask Papa Rick three times to repeat the numbers to her, but finally she got them in the correct sequence. Relief coursed through her. Short-lived relief.

      “Wait a minute,” Papa Rick said. “Trey Cooper. That name sounds familiar. This isn’t the nice young man who was stuck in the elevator with you last January, is it? The one you told us about?”

      Oh sure, now his mind clears. “Yes. But don’t tell Mother Cavanaugh, all right? I don’t want her jumping to any conclusions that would have her taking to her bed for a week and making your life unbearable.”

      “Oh. I see your point, although I can’t vouch for our Miss Reeves. No doubt, she’ll tattle. But anyway, good luck, dear. I’ll let you go so you can call your young man.”

      “He’s not my young man.”

      “Well, go see that he is. Goodbye. And kiss that baby for me.”

      “I will. And I love you. Goodbye, Papa Rick.”

      Cinda disconnected the call, then stared at the paper towel she held and on which she’d scrawled the phone number with the Atlanta area code. Her heart and her mind were singing. Trey Cooper had called her. And his life needed to be saved. Oh, happy day.

      Then she sobered. Surely, he didn’t mean that literally. So this could only be a good thing, right? A social call, as in “how are you doing, I meant to call you before now.”

      That had to be it. She eyed the phone still in her other hand…then the phone number. The phone…the number. Then the kitchen clock. It wasn’t even nine yet. She could call right now. Cinda took a deep breath for courage, swallowed her heart back down into her chest, and began dialing Trey Cooper’s number. Right then, she couldn’t have said if she wanted him to be home or not. After all, this could be a good thing—or it could be opening a Pandora’s box of emotions best left unexplored. She just didn’t know which.

      Somehow, though, the number was dialed and the phone at the other end was ringing. Hearing it, Cinda was seized by a sudden spate of panic that shrieked at her to hang up. Her hand tightened on the phone—

      STARTLED AWAKE, Trey grabbed his phone off the hook on the second ring and put it to his ear. “Hello?” No one said anything. “Hello?” He listened. “I can hear you breathing. I know you’re there. You might as well say something.”

      “Oh. Trey, is that you? This is Cinda Cooper—I mean Cavanaugh. Cinda Cavanaugh.”

      Trey sat bolt upright on his couch, where he’d been about half asleep as the TV blared some mindless nonsense. “Cinda?” Had he heard her right? Had she really said Cooper? Surely not. That was just wistful thinking on his part. “Hi. I didn’t think you were going to call me back.”

      “I’m sure you didn’t, but I just now got your message. By a very roundabout way, too.”

      “Really?” He grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. The sudden quiet was a blessing. “Been away from the house?”

      “It’s an apartment, actually. In New York. But yes I have been away. In fact, I’m back in Atlanta now.”

      Excitement quickened in him. “Are you serious? You’re here in Atlanta? Just visiting, or what?”

      “Or what. I moved back here a few months ago, into my old house. The same one I lived in before.”

      “Before what?”

      “The yaks.”

      “Oh, hell. Right. But, hey, this is great. If I’d known you were in town, I’d have come by to see the baby. How is she?”

      “Asleep, blessedly. But she’s fine. Absolutely beautiful, of course, and the smartest child in the world. Just ask her mother.”

      Trey chuckled. Then he was silent, gathering his thoughts as he ran a hand through his hair. “So, how are you doing, Cinda? I mean really.”

      “I’m good. You?”

      “I’m good.” He wasn’t. He’d been a wreck since he’d called her and hadn’t received a call back. He’d put himself through hell with all the reasons why she might not be going to call him back. In none of the scenarios had he come off well. In none of them, either, had he assigned such a simple reason as she simply no longer lived at that number.

      Suddenly Trey realized there was a silence between them. He opened his mouth to say something, but Cinda beat him to it.

      “Well, this is certainly awkward,” she said.

      “I know. Hard to believe,