Angel Baby (6 page)

“She has teeth.”

“And she uses them, believe me,” Claudia said with a laugh.
“We stopped nursing soon after those broke through...Mommy got one too many
bites.”

It took Chase a moment to comprehend her words. He watched a
slow flush rise in Claudia’s cheeks as she realized what she'd just said. The
thought her holding Sarah to her breast brought a strange feeling to Chase’s
gut. After a few seconds, he decided it was a feeling he didn’t like.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said abruptly as he turned back toward
the door.

Claudia, still looking a little embarrassed, tried to smile
at him. “Thank you very much for coming by. I’ll be at work bright and early
Monday morning.”

Chase glanced at her over his shoulder and said, “You’re
sure you don’t need more time? What about the baby?”

His eyes returned to Sarah, and again she gave him a toothy
grin that he just had to return.

“I get to watch her,” Melanie piped in as she bent and
picked Sarah up. “We’re going to have a great time, aren’t we angel-baby?”

Melanie nuzzled her face toward the baby. Sarah responded by
grabbing two fistfuls of her hair, pulling her face forward and biting her on
the nose. Claudia quickly tried to release Sarah’s tenacious grip, and Chase
laughed as he watched the whole thing from a few feet away.

Claudia finally extricated the chubby fingers and tickled
Sarah’s chin to get her to open her mouth. The baby giggled as Claudia set her
on the floor, then she crawled back toward the living room.

“I’m so sorry,” Claudia said to Melanie. “The doctor says
babies this age use their mouths to explore their environment.”

“I’d hate to see how she explores that cat over there when
no one’s looking,” Chase said, inclining his head toward the full grown tabby
cat who was glaring at Sarah as she grabbed his tail.  

“Oh, no, you don’t, missy,” Claudia said as she rushed over.
“You’ve done enough for one day. Leave the kitty alone.” 

Chase watched Claudia pick the baby up and cuddle her close
as she gently scolded her. Her love for Sarah was obvious in her tone of voice,
in the tender way she stroked the grasping little hands, and in how she rubbed
her cheek against the baby’s soft hair. He was again struck with an unfamiliar
feeling...only this time, he realized why.

Seeing Claudia mother her baby brought forth painful
memories of his own mother. Memories he’d just as soon keep buried. He didn’t
want to think of the occasional loving moments of his early childhood. They
made his mother’s eventual descent into drug addiction, and her senseless death,
that much more difficult to bear. 

“Sylvia, you did say Mr. Paxton gave me free reign as far as
the computers go, right?”

Claudia gave the older woman a friendly smile as Chase’s
administrative assistant—who was old-school and preferred to be called a
secretary—backed her chair away from her desk and turned around.

 “Well, within reason, of course,” the woman replied.

The secretary didn’t like her. Claudia had sensed from the
moment she met her that there would be problems with the gray-haired woman who
ran Chase’s office like a battleship, treating her co-workers like Naval
cadets. Though this was only her second day working for Paxton Construction,
Claudia knew she was headed for trouble with the Sarge, as the receptionist,
Annie, and some of the other office workers liked to call Sylvia. The Sarge
thought computers were a frivolous waste of money, and insisted on doing all
correspondence on an electric typewriter. She’d had her back up from the moment
she and Claudia had been introduced. Luckily, the half dozen or so other office
employees had been perfectly friendly and had already started giving her ideas
on how their own work could be better automated. 

Claudia wasn’t sure how to approach the situation, because
Chase Paxton hadn’t been in his office at all since she’d started. Annie had
told her he’d been called to Pittsburgh on urgent business, and Claudia was to
begin inventorying equipment and putting together a list of requirements.

“Just wanted to be sure. I need to set up an active
workstation for myself, and I don’t want to wait until the new system I’ve
requisitioned comes in. So I’m going to do a little piracy on the three older
P.C.’s in the storage closet. If you’d like, when I get my new work station, I
could give the one I’m putting together to you.”

The secretary frowned and Claudia sighed. The Sarge was
going to be very difficult to pull into the computer age.  Frankly, she had to
wonder why Chase kept her as his private secretary, considering her techniques—and
her title—were a decade out of date.

“Mr. Paxton knows very well that I won’t have one of those
contraptions on my desk,” the woman snapped. “It’s beyond me why he feels the
need to spend thousands of dollars on the infernal things, and on you, when good
old-fashioned hard work and neat handwriting used to be quite enough.”

Claudia straightened and nodded at the woman. “I’m sorry you
feel that way. But I do understand. It's not easy changing the way you do
things, especially when they're obviously working so well. I just want you to
know that I’m here to support the rest of you...to make your jobs easier. If
that means just staying out of your way, then so be it.”

The woman’s stiff form relaxed the tiniest bit, and her
frown eased.

“Well,” she conceded, “I suppose having all the financial
records in one of those things has helped a little. The accounting office stays
right on top of accounts payable and there’s no overlooking it if some
government client gets sixty days behind on their payment schedule. So, I’m not
saying they’re useless for everyone.”

Claudia suppressed a grin at the woman’s grudging tone.
Perhaps Sylvia could be brought around after all. It was very possible her
reluctance about using a computer was because of her own insecurities. Claudia
suddenly felt a pang of pity for the older woman, silently vowing to try to
help the Sarge in whatever way she could.

Smiling agreeably, Claudia left Sylvia's desk and went back
to her own office. It wasn't huge, but it was nicely furnished. Best of all, it
had a door. In Pittsburgh, she’d had a five by seven cubicle, and had bumped
her knees on her filing cabinet whenever she tried to walk out from behind her
desk. She had often imagined that if someone were looking down from above, she
and her co-workers looked like mice in a maze in those unending cubicles.

Crossing her office, Claudia grinned as she got to work.
Asking Sylvia for permission had really been a formality; Claudia had already
dug the three p.c.’s out of the storage room and set them on a work table in
the corner of her office. One wasn’t too outdated, and had a decent size hard
drive. Another had the best modem. And the third she’d use to scavenge extra
memory.

Within an hour, Claudia had put together a decent system and
carefully moved it to her desk. Glancing toward the phone jack, she realized
she’d need to run some cable, and would have to crawl under the desk to plug
the components together. Kicking off her high heeled white pumps, she sat down
on the floor and backed under the desk so she could reach up to the back of the
computer, hoping Sylvia wouldn’t come into her office, see her rolling around
on the floor, and decide to start disliking her even more.

Chase had been informed by Sylvia the minute he arrived at work
that his new computer programmer was “scavenging” and “pirating.” A few
interesting images popped into his head...Claudia wearing tight black leather
and other pirate paraphernalia, but he quickly dashed them as he made his way
to her office. The door was not completely closed, so he walked right in. But
he didn’t immediately see her.

He was about to leave when he heard a muffled, “Get in
there, you darn thing.”

Frowning, Chase glanced around the corner of the large desk
and suppressed a grin when he saw two very shapely legs, attached to a curvy
set of hips, sticking out from under it. His amusement quickly faded as she
bent her leg higher causing her short green skirt to ride up on her
creamy-skinned thigh.

“Ah-hem,” he choked out, wanting to be sure she knew she had
an audience.

The legs jerked suddenly. From under the desk he heard a
muffled, “Ouch!”

Claudia slid out, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand.
She scowled at him and said, “You startled me.”

“Did you bump your head?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you break the desk?” he asked her, maintaining a
deadpan expression.

Claudia stared at him for a moment, then his lips twitched
and he smiled.

“Very funny,” she retorted as she stood.

He noted that she took care not to allow her skirt to slide
up any closer to her panty line than it already had.
Lord have mercy.

“Have you ever heard of worker’s compensation?”

“Oh, no,” he groaned, “don’t say that. Not even in jest. I
already had OSHA climbing all over me because someone called in a bogus report
that my equipment operators weren't certified."

Curious about what she’d been working on, Chase walked
closer to the desk and peered at the computer system she’d set up. He
recognized the "scavenged" pieces on the work table, realizing what
Sylvia had been talking about.

About to compliment her on her work, he turned to face her,
catching her staring at him intently. She stiffened, then shifted her gaze.
Gesturing toward the desk, she stammered, “I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to
get right to work. Since no one was using these machines....”

Chase let her get away with turning his attention from her
obvious perusal. But he was very much aware of the smoky look in her eyes and
the color which rushed into her pale cheeks. He paused for a moment, as her
words trail off into a short, awkward silence, then waved a dismissive hand.

“Of course I don’t mind. This is what I hired you for.
Although, next time you need to do some wiring, I suggest you ask for some
assistance...or at least wear a pair of jeans to work.”

Letting his eyes wander down her rumpled skirt, Chase again
paused to appreciate the shapely length of her legs. He watched her slip her
feet into a pair of pumps, and when she had, saw that she was nearly eye level
with him. He allowed his eyes to meet hers, and noticed she’d seen him staring.
He didn’t apologize, any more than she had, though probably not for the same
reason. Claudia had been embarrassed to be caught sizing him up. Chase wasn’t
embarrassed…he was merely annoyed with himself for noticing, yet again, how
incredibly attractive she was.

Chase sat down in a chair near her desk, again glancing
around the office. She’d brought in a plant, and a flowery desk blotter. A lime
green suit jacket hung haphazardly from the back of her chair, and two framed
photographs sat on the desk. One, of course, was of Sarah, dressed in a pink
seersucker sailor suit. The other picture depicted three children, two girls
and a boy, and Chase couldn’t resist picking it up to look at it more closely.

“The girl in the middle...it’s you, isn’t it?” Chase asked
as he stared down at the little girl who looked to be about seven years old.

Smiling gently, Claudia nodded as she peered over his
shoulder. “Yes, all two hundred freckles and scabby knees of me.”

“And the blonde, is that Melanie?”

“Good eye,” Claudia said, staring at him appraisingly. “How
could you tell? She certainly doesn’t have those big empty holes in her smile.
She wondered if her permanent teeth would ever come in.”

"It’s the eyes. You two have been friends for a very long
time.”

“Since we were babies,” Claudia said as she edged closer to
the desk, leaning against it.

“Looking at this, it’s easy to see how much Sarah looks like
you.”

Claudia nodded slightly, saying, “Yes, but she has her
daddy’s stubborn jaw. See?”

Chase didn’t understand her for a moment, then what she’d
said sunk in. Startled, he stared at the little boy in the picture. He looked
about the same age as Claudia and Melanie, with a wide, closed-mouth grin, a
cowlick, and a twinkle in his eye.

“This is...”

“Joe,” she supplied instantly. “My late husband.”

Chase nodded slightly as he said, “You obviously knew him
for a long time.”

“He was my other best friend for as long as I can remember,
the boy next door.”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” Chase insisted. “I mean, from what
you said the night Sarah was born, I assumed he was....”

Not wanting to come out and say the word "dead"
for some strange reason, Chase let his words trail off. A slight silence
stretched between them. He nearly apologized for bringing up the subject, but
stopped. Part of him was very curious about her late husband. What hell she
must have gone through to lose him during her pregnancy.

“He was struck and killed by a hit and run driver about six
weeks after we moved to Philadelphia,” Claudia finally said.

Chase closed his eyes briefly, imagining her heartache. “You
moved there from this area, right?”

“Yes, we grew up in Milltown,” Claudia said as she leaned
against her desk. “We got married right after we both graduated from college,
then stayed for a year to save some money. When Joe was accepted at a law
school in Philadelphia about eighteen months ago, we moved there. I got a job
right away, with the city, and was planning to support us both while he
finished school. He was killed shortly thereafter.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t come right back home. Surely your
friends and family were here.”

Claudia nodded briefly. “Ryan and Melanie begged me to, and
I probably would have. But the week after Joe’s funeral, I found out I was
pregnant. I had to stay in my job. I needed the security and insurance.”