Page 5 of SEAL’S Baby Surprise (Lanes #2)

RICHARD

I look up from my laptop to survey my living room. Kandis is rocking Little Slugger, AKA Charles Andrew Lane.

Charlie is almost two years old now, and the miracle that has saved my life. How? Well, because Kandy might not have been willing to ever see me again if she hadn’t been pregnant with our son.

You see, I had been on a mission to get my hands on the Quinn Vineyard. It made this unbelievably good designer wine from their own grapes.

But Charles “Pops” Quinn wouldn’t sell. Just weeks before, I’d been dumped at the altar by the high society lady who had said, “Yes, I’ll marry you,” then changed her mind at the last minute and had run off with a friend of mine. It was a classic, but that hadn’t make it any more fun.

I had been invited to her wedding. (Yeah, the irony…) And I’d needed a date. I’d decided that maybe going out with Kandis would be my ticket to getting close to the Quinns.

I had seduced her, then blackmailed her by threatening to tell her grandparents she wasn’t a virgin anymore to make sure that she went with me to the wedding.

You gotta understand, when my Kandy is dressed up, she’s an absolute knockout. Actually, she’s a knockout in old jeans and a sweatshirt, or nine-months pregnant.

But back to the story. I had wanted to make my ex so jealous she’d wish she’d stuck around. Stupid? Yeah, you got that part right. It had been stupid. And it’d backfired on me, because I’d fallen in love with Kandis Quinn.

Kandy had had mommy troubles – still does. We have the care of her absolutely feckless, irresponsible mother. But, in spite of everything, Kandy loves her. And in the same inexplicable way, she seems to love me.

It’s a mystery how I got so lucky. She and Little Slugger are almost my entire world. I say “almost” because I do have a brother and a sister, for whom I do have some familial feelings.

Now here’s the weird thing: After refusing to sell the vineyard to me, I married into it. It seems that getting Kandis settled with a “good man” had been her “Pops” and “Mimi” Quinn’s goal before stepping down as managers of the Quinn Vineyard.

Oh, Pops still messes around with new wine combinations, and Mimi holds parties for the staff, but Kandy and I do the day-to-day management, and I’ve never been happier in my life.

My partner, Delard, handles most of the rest of the business, and I only have to rein him in once in a while when he gets too focused on making more money.

But then Something Happens. Seems like when you are at your happiest, something always happens.

My baby sister, Rylie, is missing. It’s almost like deja vu all over again (yeah, I know — redundant) because she ran away during the wedding rehearsal.

Her hubby-to-be, Jason Leroy Wintergreen, is wailing and gnashing his teeth all over television and the Internet, and radio, even. He swears she must have been kidnapped.

Kandis looks over at me. “Fretting again, Rich?”

“Yeah. Rylie hasn’t any more sense than a baby bird about how the world works.

She hasn’t called me for help, and she hasn’t checked in with her friend, Rosalee.

Her credit and debit cards haven’t been used.

In fact, she didn’t even take her purse with her when she ran away.

Even so, she’s legally an adult. The police say she hasn’t been missing long enough to start looking.

” I pause and think about how to put my next words.

No real way to say it, but to just say it. “So, I’m worried. I promise she doesn’t know how to hike into the backwoods and live on her own. The few times I’ve had her up at the cabin for a visit, she freaked out when a squirrel ran across the porch.”

“It does seem odd,” Kandis agrees, carefully standing up with Slugger over her shoulder. His dark head is nestled against her neck, his mouth is slack with sleep, and he drools a little.

“Want help?”

“I’ve got it,” she says. She walks away, leaving me with my worries and no specific plan of action.

When she returns, her arms are empty. “He went down like a little angel. Amazing how much sweeter they look when they are asleep.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “And when they are in their bed, you know where they are. You know what’s weird, Kandy?”

“What,” she asks, sitting down in her chair and picking up her tablet and drawing stylus. Kandy had gotten bored staying at home when Charlie was a baby and had started making little digital sketches. She’d posted some of them, got requests for them, and soon she was selling her little doodles.

We don’t need the income, but it gives her a sense of independence, beyond her inheritance of the vineyard. It never hurts to have something to fall back on.

“There’s no ransom note. If Rylie was kidnapped, then there should be a note, a request or something.”

“Maybe she found someone she liked better,” Kandis comments.

“I never liked Jason in the first place. He reminds me too much of Justin — both the name, and his actions.” Justin is her ex-boyfriend whom she’d caught in bed with her ex-best friend.

Yeah, we both had entered our relationship with emotional baggage.

“He does seem like a bit of a slimy weasel,” I agree, thoughtfully staring into space. “I honestly can’t say that I like him either. I’ve got their prenup agreement on my desk, but I’ve not signed off on it.”

“Do you need to do that?” Kandy asks.

“If it’s legal,” I say. “I’m in charge of the family finances. All Rylie’s ever had is her allowance, and the stuff I buy for her. Shoot, she’s hardly out of college. I’ve not signed the thing. It makes me uneasy.”

“What are you going to do?” Kandis asks.

“I’m thinking about hiring a private detective to look for her. She took off wearing enough in diamonds and pearls to cover the vineyard payroll for the next two years. She could have been mugged for the gems and left dead somewhere.”

Kandis says. “I think a detective is a good idea, Rich. They say the first three days in a missing person case is vital, and you’ve not been able to find a trace of her in any of the usual places. For all we know, Mr. Slimy did the deed.”

“We’re on the same wavelength,” I say. “Delard knows of a couple of good men for this kind of job. I’ll call him tonight and see what we can get going.”

“Charlie and I will be fine if you want to go looking personally,” Kandis says.

I shake my head. “I’m no good at that sort of thing. I’d just mess things up and maybe get my sister killed by blundering around.”

“All right,” she says. “Try to come to bed before dawn.”

“I’ll try,” I say. She knows me well. I find it hard to sleep when something like this is riding me. She’s as fond of Rylie as I am, but knows she needs to get some rest before Slugger gets out of bed. The kid has radar for inattention. The last thing we need is for him to go missing, too.