The Baby Bargain Read online

  Dear Reader,

  I was delighted when I found out that The Baby Bargain was being reprinted. This was a book that touched my heart and, judging from the mail I've received over the years, readers apparently felt the same way.

  This is a story about two people who meet under less than ideal circumstances. They have nothing in common except loneliness and a shared need to belong somewhere—to have roots, a place in the world. Family.

  I know some people believe that a family is born of shared blood and ancestral ties, but I've always thought that family is a matter of the heart. That's the way it is for Dan and Kelly, anyway. Two lonely people with few dreams, who find love and build a life together against all expectations.

  I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  i>cJL^

  Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service

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  Chapter 1

  JVelly Russell pulled her coat a little tighter, hunching her shoulders together as the worn fabric balked at closing. The coat was nearly four years old and it hadn't aged well. The gray polyester had looked cheap and shiny when new. It still looked cheap, but the shine had worn off years ago, leaving the edges frayed and the pockets threadbare.

  Kelly had been a thin, angular fourteen-year-old when the coat was purchased. She was still thin but no longer angular, and it was an unfortunate fact that the coat hadn't grown as her body filled out. Now the mismatched buttons refused to close across her bust, allowing the cold, late-December wind to cut through her.

  She shivered, sheltered even as she was by the library's wide porch. The winter weather seemed more bitter than it had in years past. Or maybe she just felt it more. Lately it seemed as if she was always cold, deep inside where no coat could warm.

  Funny how she'd thought that this year might be different. Every year, as Christmas approached, her spirits lifted. She began to remember Christmases when she was a little girl, before her brother, Devlin, left home, before her mother died.

  They had celebrated the holiday then with a tree and lights and deliciously exciting packages.

  There hadn't been anything expensive in the packages— they'd never had the money for expensive gifts. Often as not, the boxes contained some necessity. But just the fact that they were gaily wrapped was enough to elevate the most ordinary pair of socks to new heights.

  And once in a while there would be something truly wondrous waiting under the tree. The last Christmas before he left, Devlin had used some of the money he'd earned working on a farm over the summer to buy her the most beautiful doll she'd ever seen. All dark ringlets and bright blue eyes, it seemed the most incredible gift, almost magical. She'd treasured that doll as only an eight-year-old could. She'd thought that she would never own anything half as nice again in her whole life.

  The wind skidded around the side of the building, slicing through her, reminding her that this was neither the time nor the place for dawdling along, lost in daydreams. Kelly shivered, clutching her precious stack of books to her chest as she hurried down the library steps.

  It was stupid to think about the past. If she'd learned nothing else, she should have figured that out by now. Those Christ-mases were all a long time ago. Devlin had left the summer after giving her that doll. Her mother had died three years later. And the doll had gone the way of so many things from that time—into the trash where her father had thrown it while she watched. He'd said the doll was made in the image of a painted hussy and was unfit for his household.

  Now another Christmas had come and gone. The new year lay just on the other side of sunset Remembrance, Indiana, bustled with a final burst of holiday spirit The Christmas lights lent a sparkle to the town, one that was reflected in people's eyes as they rushed home to get ready to go out and celebrate the coming of a new year.

  Despite the cold that seemed to bite into her bones, Kelly was in no hurry to get home. No parties, no laughing friends, awaited her. Her father had declared that the only proper way to greet the new year was on your knees praying for the world's

  salvation, just as it was the only way to celebrate the Lord's birth.

  Kelly had knelt until her knees ached. She didn't know if the world was any closer to salvation because of it, but she knew her youth was slipping away without her having even tasted it. As she watched the old year fade, she felt as if she was watching her life fade along with it.

  She dodged a group of boys who were running down die sidewalk, laughing and shouting. It seemed as if even the children had someplace to go, something to look forward to.

  Glancing in the direction the boys had come from, she felt her face flush and then pale. Diane Randall and Chad Levitt. Up until she had quit school a year and a half ago, Kelly had gone to school with the couple now walking toward her. The captain of the football team and the head cheerleader. A fairytale couple, right out of one of the many novels Kelly devoured in secret

  She'd read in the paper that Chad had been recruited by one of the "big ten" universities. She didn't know what Diane's plans were, but Kelly didn't doubt that she'd go on to do something wonderful and exciting. Some people were just born to live wonderful and exciting lives.

  Kelly ducked her head over the books she carried as they drew near. She didn't want them to see her. Didn't want to see their pity or contempt. She knew what she looked like. She saw her reflection every morning in the tiny mirror in her bedroom. With her hair scraped back, no makeup and her plain, worn clothes, she looked old and unattractive.

  With her head lowered, Kelly misjudged her path. Her forward progress was abruptly halted when she bumped into someone.

  "Careful." The hands that steadied her were large and strong, the voice one she had once dreamed of. She raised her head, meeting Chad Levitt's dark brown eyes, remembering how she'd fantasized about him the year she turned fifteen.

  "You okay?" he asked with impersonal courtesy.

  Mute, she glanced from him to Diane, who was looking at her with a faint frown—but no recognition. The realization

  knocked the breath from Kelly. That Chad didn't recognize her was no surprise. After all, their paths had never really crossed. But she and Diane had stood next to each other in lines, had lockers that sat side by side. By virtue of their last names starting with the same letter, they'd been thrown together frequently, developing, if not a friendship, a friendly acquaintance.

  When Kelly had quit school soon after her sixteenth birthday, Diane had helped her clean out her locker, her pretty features concerned. Kelly hadn't told anyone why she was quitting. She'd just gotten so tired. Tired of fighting her father, of dealing with his anger every morning. As far as he was concerned, an education was a waste of time, especially for a woman.

  And she'd grown tired of never fitting in at school. She was always on the outside looking in. That wasn't going to change.

  But she couldn't explain that to Diane—pretty, popular Diane. Diane had been kind. She'd even told Kelly to keep in touch. Not that Kelly had done any such thing. She'd taken the invitation exactly as it was meant, a kind gesture, certainly nothing to be acted upon. But she'd treasured the knowledge that she'd had an almost-friend.

  Now Diane was looking at her without the slightest trace of recognition.

  "Hey, are you okay?" Chad was starting to frown.

  "Maybe she's deaf, Chad," Diane suggested, looking sympathetic. "Speak slowly so that she can read your lips."

  "Are...you..."

  "I'm fine," Kelly got out, her voice husky. "I wasn't watching where I was going. Sorry."

  She dodged around them without waiting for a reply an
d hurried down the sidewalk, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the humiliating scene as possible. Tears burned in her eyes, cooling as they fell onto her icy cheeks.

  She was nearly a block away before she slowed, angrily wiping her fingers over her face. It was stupid to be so upset. Why should they remember her? She'd been a nothing, a nonentity, a shadow. That's all she'd ever managed to be in school.

  She had always known she wasn't pretty or sophisticated like other girls. She'd never had the clothes or makeup the girls in school had chattered about, and she'd never known how to giggle and flirt like they had seemed born knowing how to do. If her mother hadn't died maybe things would have been different

  But her mother had died and her father thought cosmetics were the devil's work. Kelly shuddered, remembering the one time she'd tried wearing makeup. She'd found a box of her mother's things and had been playing with some eye shadow and lipstick when her father walked into her room. It was the first time he'd taken his belt to her. There had been other times since then, more than she could remember, but the memory of that beating lingered in her mind, all the more terrible because she hadn't understood why he was so angry.

  Not that she understood it any better now, but she'd come to accept her father's rages, the way other people accepted the flu—unpredictable and something to be endured.

  Her footsteps slowed as she neared the edge of town. Bud's Tavern was just across the street. Neon signs advertising beer flashed in the gathering dusk. The parking lot was almost full but she knew more cars would somehow be wedged into it as the night wore on. Inside, people would be laughing and talking, dancing maybe, having fun.

  Her father said places like Bud's Tavern were dens of iniquity. Kelly didn't dare disagree, but to her Bud's had always looked warm and cheerful. What would it be like to be part of the crowd inside? she wondered. Would it be fun and exciting or would she feel lost and out of place as she always had in a group?

  Shaking her head, she turned away, her footsteps quicker now. If she didn't hurry, she was going to be late and her father would be angry. He already verged on disapproval regarding her trips to the library. It wouldn't do to give him a reason to forbid her to go again.

  The trailer house where Kelly and her father lived was on die edge of town, set in the middle of an overgrown lot that was the only thing of value her father owned. Kelly made spo-

  radic efforts to keep the yard tidy but it was a losing battle. Three old cars sat in rusting heaps where the front lawn might have been. A shed leaned drunkenly against a sagging fence.

  The trailer house was as old and worn as its surroundings. It had once been pale blue and white, and Kelly sometimes thought it might have been bright and cheerful when it was new. But now it was old. The paint had faded to a vague gray and dents marred the sides.

  The interior was painfully neat and just as painfully shabby. Holes in the sofa had been covered with a blanket that had, in its turn, developed holes of its own. The curtains were a heavy, dark cotton that blocked out what little sunlight could penetrate the overgrown trees. The tiny kitchen held a stove and refrigerator and enough counter space to make a sandwich.

  Kelly barely noticed the shabbiness. Sometimes she remembered the little house they'd lived in when her mother was alive. It had been dilapidated, too, but there had been a different feeling about its disrepair. It was as if the house hadn't given up hope of being restored to its former charms. The trailer had given up hope a long time ago.

  Her father sat in one corner of the sofa, hunched over his Bible, his lips moving as he read. He didn't bother to look up and acknowledge Kelly's arrival. She hurried through the kitchen to the tiny alcove that served as her bedroom, putting the library books on her bed and shrugging out of her coat. Her shoes were damp but there was nothing to be done about that. The sturdy black saddle shoes were the only ones she owned. They would just have to dry while she wore them.

  Dinner was a plain meal of beans and corn bread. The beans were bland but filling. She was going to have to go to the store in a day or two—a chore that she hated. She hated seeing everyone else with their full carts while she counted every penny she spent.

  Her father ate without speaking, muttering some passage from the Bible now and then, his eyes fierce under fiirrowed brows. Looking at him, Kelly tried to remember what he'd been like when she was a little girl. Had he ever smiled at her, ever laughed? She couldn't remember.

  She picked at her food, feeling something hot and painful in her chest. Was this how the rest of her life was to be? Sitting across the table from her father, unspoken to, unspeaking? Never tasting even the edge of life? Was she going to grow old and die without ever being young and alive, without ever dancing or laughing with a man or wearing a pretty dress?

  "Get your coat, girl. They'll be expecting us at the meet-

  *— »* mg.

  Kelly turned away from the shallow sink, wiping her shaky hands on her dress. Her father waited near the door, his dour face almost animated as he considered the evening of prayer that was to follow.

  "I...I don't feel very well. Maybe I should stay home." The words were hardly more than a whisper as terror threatened to close her throat.

  "What's wrong with you?" he demanded, a harsh scowl hooking his brows together over steel-gray eyes.

  "I feel...sick." It wasn't exactly a lie. When she thought of the dark little meeting room with its cold cement floor and bare walls, she did feel sick.

  He stepped forward, his fingers hard on her arm as he pulled her forward into the light. Fear had driven the color from her face, lending credence to her plea of illness.

  "I wouldn't want my illness to interrupt the meeting, make us come home early or anything," she stammered.

  "It is an important meeting." He released her abruptly, wiping his hand on his sleeve in an unconscious gesture as if he disliked touching her. "If the world's to be saved, it will be through the power of prayer. You know that, don't you?"

  "Yes, Fattier," she whispered, keeping her eyes lowered.

  "You'll stay here, then, and pray," he announced.

  "Yes."

  She hid her crossed fingers against the side of her dress, wondering if she was condemning her immortal soul to eternal damnation by lying about something as important as prayer.

  But at the moment her immortal soul seemed a dim concept. If she didn't do something—anything—her whole life was going to be gone without her ever having lived it.

  She waited until she heard the last hiccup of her father's battered old pickup track before darting into her tiny room and pulling the door shut behind her. Her hands were shaking as she dragged the narrow box from under her bed, brushing away the dust that had gathered on it.

  It had been almost three years since she had dared to pull it out. If her father knew she'd kept the things it contained... She shivered, forcing the thought away. He was going to be gone until after midnight tonight. Sometimes these prayer meetings lasted all night.

  And it wasn't as if she was going to do anything really wrong, she reasoned with herself as she lifted the lid of the box. It wasn't a sin to want to have just a taste of fun, was it?

  The box held very little, really. A shiny green satin doll dress that was all that was left of Devlin's Christmas gift and a faded picture of her brother and herself, taken when she was seven and Devlin had been a tall, lanky teenager. Ordinarily she would have lingered over the photograph, trying to flesh it out with increasingly fuzzy memories. But tonight her mind was on the future, not the past.

  She drew another dress out, holding it up to herself as she knelt on the floor. Her mother had worn this dress to a dance in high school. Kelly had seen the pictures once.

  The same pictures she'd watched her father burn after her mother was killed in a car wreck. Running away with her lover, he'd said. But she hadn't believed it. Devlin had gone away but her mother would never have left her—not without a word. If she'd been leaving, she would have taken Kelly
with her.

  She shook the thoughts away as she set the dress aside. She lifted out a pair of high-heeled pumps that matched the dress and the flat case that held all that was left of her mother's makeup.

  Stepping out of her own plain dress, Kelly slipped the brightly printed dress over her worn underwear. The print was a wild mixture of pink and orange and green, all swirled together. What was it called? She frowned, trying to remember. Psychedelic. That was it. The bodice had a scooped neck and the skirt dropped straight from the high waistline.

  She frowned, tugging at the short skirt, which exposed an extraordinary length of leg. Her dresses usually came to the bottom of her knee. Now she felt exposed. But she'd seen other girls wearing short skirts. She set her teeth. Just for tonight she was going to find out what it was like to be like the other girls.

  Just for one night.

  Dan Remington stared at the TV dinner he'd just pulled from the oven, his expression morose. New Year's Eve and he was sitting in his apartment with nothing for company but an ailing plant and a very healthy alley cat. He watched without interest as the cat leaped to the top of the table and boldly walked over to sniff at the TV dinner.

  "You have the manners of a warthog, Grunge."

  Grunge looked at Dan, gauging the seriousness of the accusation. Deciding, correctly, that Dan wasn't going to protest his presence, he returned his attention to the food. He sniffed at the vegetables, dismissing them as unworthy of his attention. The apple cobbler received dubious approval—the crust might be edible. The sliced turkey and gravy were tasted, considered and then approved.

  Dan scratched behind one battered gray ear, knowing that the cat would just as soon be left alone. From Grunge's attitude, it was sometimes hard to tell who paid the rent on the apartment. Grunge had moved in soon after Dan, not precisely asking permission, but more as if he were granting a favor by allowing Dan to stay. Dan had never considered himself much of a cat lover but he'd found the big torn helped alleviate some of the loneliness.

  Loneliness. Dan shook his head. He'd never expected to find himself turning to a cat for company. But then he had never expected to find himself so cut off from the people he'd known all his life.