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“Yeah, that’s right.”

“A family?”

Rudy felt himself beginning to sweat. Under his overcoat and wool scarf, he was as hot and itchy as if he’d been roasting too long on his Malibu sun deck.

Tell her it’s you. Explain how you’d be the best dad any kid could have, that he … or she … would lack for nothing in this world, a house in a neighborhood with great schools, a cottage right on the beach, the best nanny, and when the time came, Little League, Boy Scouts, music lessons, you name it. Best of all, you’d love him like he was your own … not in spite of the fact that he was Laurel’s, but because of it… .

“Well, see-“

“Because it’d have to be,” she said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t even consider it. I mean, if my baby wasn’t going

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to be part of a family … a real family … what would be the point?”

“What if I said it was me?” he tossed off, making it sound as if it were a joke. “That I wanted to adopt it?”

“You? Oh, Uncle Rudy!” Laurel’s tense look dissolved, and she giggled, cupping her hand over her mouth.

She couldn’t know he was serious, but still … it hurt. Behind her laughter just now, he’d caught just a hint of something he couldn’t put his finger on … disgust? Disgust at the thought of her baby nestled in his arms? Rudy felt as though something were curdling inside him, and he tasted something sour on the back of his tongue.

Hell, even if he were to line up the perfect couple, she could still back off, say no way, and then what? He couldn’t force her. Not that he would want to. He’d never hurt her. In this whole damn world, who else did he love?

Hey, you’re a good lawyer, he reminded himself. The best damned matrimonial man in L.A. County … and if nine out of ten you can usually swing a who-cares jury and a tight-ass judge, you sure as hell ought to be able to handle this one.

Rudy took a deep breath. “What I’m saying is, they don’t have any kids, so they’re not a family that way … but the sweetest couple you’d ever want to meet,” he began. “Husband’s a realestate developer, great big house, plenty of money, loves kids. He takes off Saturdays to spend the whole day with this spi-Mexican kid he’s Big Brother for. He’s even taught him to play chess. His wife raises dogs, out in their backyard. Cocker spaniels or something. Puppies running around everywhere. They’ve been trying for years and years to have a kid, but the doctors tell them it doesn’t look too good. You shoulda seen the look on her face when she told me how bad she wanted a baby … it was enough to break your heart. Nice people. They’d be terrific parents.”

“Did you tell them? About me?” She looked stricken.

“Hell, no. I wouldn’t do that, not without talking to you first.” She was so close, he could smell her … the smell of talcum powder and rosewater. A baby’s smell. He

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felt a longing so fierce it ached, pushing inside his skull, making his blood sing in his ears. But he kept his voice even. “Don’s one of our firm’s big clients, mostly on real estate deals. But since I handle the family law, he thought I might be able to help him out with, well, finding a child to adopt.”

What he’d actually done was give the guy the number of a shyster in Pasadena who specialized in bringing babies in from Colombia and Brazil. Perfectly legit. He’d handled Don’s problem … and, by providing Rudy with a convincing cover story, Don was inadvertently squaring things for him.

He could tell Laurel was struggling. Yeah, he’d done right to throw in Don and his wife, a real-life Ozzie and Harriet. She could relate to them more than to some anonymous listings on an adoption agency’s waiting list. And maybe, by gilding the lily like he had, he was really doing her a favor, putting her mind at ease. Painting her a rosy picture of her baby crawling around some palace, with dewy-eyed Mom and Dad exclaiming over every dirty diaper like it was a precious gift, and dozens of cute puppies to roll in the grass with.

“I don’t know …” Laurel’s gaze drifted off in the direction of the teddy-bear mobile. She pushed at it gently, making the little bears break into a jiggling little dance. She was trying very hard, he could see, not to cry.

Now, he told himself, now. While she was still wrestling with this, he had to really pitch it, before she backed away. Like with that case he’d handled years ago. Rudy remembered looking at Judge Weaver, and seeing that despite all the motions, filings, depositions, hours of direct and cross, the man had still not yet come to a decision. And he, Rudy, knew that if he didn’t say something, do something, Weaver could well retire to chambers and then eventually rule that, no, a fag shouldn’t have any real rights as a daddy. Then the idea came to him, and he scribbled one word onto a scrap of paper: cry. He’d shoved it at his client. The poor guy stood never to see his daughter except in the presence of some court-appointed guardian, but

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always he kept the stiff upper lip like he’d been taught in those snob schools he’d gone to.

You’d have thought Ashgood was an actor instead of a Mayflower blueblood. One, two, three, bowing his head to his chest and letting loose a muffled sob, with tears that looked like the real McCoy, which they were. Got him six weeks of visitation a year, but unsupervised. Not the twelve they’d wanted … but more than Rudy had ever thought they would get.

“You’d be doing it for the baby, not for that couple,” he told Laurel. “And for yourself. You’re young. You’ll have other kids … later, when you’re married, with a house in Montclair or Scarsdale, lawn with fruit trees, nice shaggy dog, the works. Why go and mess up your life now when you’re so jvya-sg, .make everything so hard for yourself, for your baby? These people are good peopfe, LauroJ. Think about it. I mean, seriously.”

“I am.” Whipping around to face him, she said sharply, “I think about it every day. I can’t sleep sometimes for thinking about what it’d be like to give my baby away. And do you want to hear something really crazy? For the first time, I’m glad my father is dead. Maybe he wasn’t the best father in the world, but I’m sure it would’ve hurt him to know I was somewhere out there where he couldn’t reach me.”

The prickling under Rudy’s wool scarf now made him reach under it and begin rubbing his neck, kneading it, feeling his skin grow even more irritated. Val. Christ. Like the proverbial bad penny, Val kept turning up. Last month, calling Rudy’s office to beg money-on top of the five grand he already owed. Something about quitting his job-the dipshit who ran the health club where he worked was always on him, Val had said, always ragging his ass about some diddly-squat thing, so finally he’d thrown in the towel. He’d pay Rudy back soon as he’d lined up something else.

Yeah, the day I grow a square asshole and shit bricks, Rudy had wanted to say. Quit? More likely Val was fired, and the “diddly-squat” his boss was after him about was Val half the time not showing up for the classes he was

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supposed to teach … yeah, and maybe hitting on some of his female students.

This wasn’t the first time. Over the years, it had happened so often Rudy wondered why his brother even bothered to make excuses. Still, he’d written him a check, hadn’t he? Blood money, that’s how he thought of it. Val didn’t know it, but Rudy was the one who owed him. For Laurel, for the sweetness she’d brought to his life. Not that he was really taking anything away from his brother. Val had never wanted kids, couldn’t handle being a father. The main reason, Rudy guessed, that he’d been so pissed off at Annie and Laurel’s jumping ship was his stupid pride. Yeah, Val had been mad because he’d been dumped.

He wanted to tell Laurel that there was no need for her to mourn Val, but how could he, without admitting that he’d lied to her all those years ago?

“You wouldn’t be giving it away,” he told her instead. “Not like that, not like giving away something you didn’t want. Hell, you’d be giving him something good, a great chance. A normal life. Two loving parents instead of just one.”

“Why are you doing this? Why do you care so much?”

Now Laurel’s eyes were narrowing suspiciously. He felt sweat pop out on his forehead. Christ, that’s all he needed, to start sweating like a pig, so she might get suspicious, maybe guess he was trying to pull something, and not just doing her a favor like he’d said.

Easy, he told himself, take it easy. Don’t push or you’ll blow this.

Rudy shrugged, dropping the stuffed bunny back into the crib. “Hey, if it’s a crime to care about somebody, and to want what’s best for them,” he said lightly, “then call me guilty.”

She touched his arm. “Uncle Rudy, I didn’t mean …”

“I know, I know.” He smiled. “It must be tough, what you’re going through. Jesus, when I think of the guy who-” He stopped himself, shoving his fists into the pockets of his cashmere overcoat. If he started in about the

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creep who’d knocked Laurel up, he’d end up blowing a gasket.

“Don’t blame him,” Laurel said quickly. “He doesn’t even know about the baby. I never told him.”

“Why not?”

“Oh … lots of reasons. But not what you probably think. He’d have wanted to help out. No, more than that … he’d have turned it into some kind of … of … crusade. Like I was some Head Start program to educate migrant farmworkers or something.” She shivered, hugging herself. “I didn’t want that. Believe me, it’s better this way.”

“Okay, never mind about him, then. What about you? What do you want? You tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll help you any way I can. Tell me”—and here he was sticking his neck way out—“I’m on the wrong track here, and we’ll forget the whole thing.”

He watched her chew her lip, and felt a flicker of hope. He wanted to shout that he would be the baby’s father, he would love it and take care of it like nobody else could.

But how could he expect her to understand how much he needed this … and how much he’d love her child?

“Can I think about it?” Laurel asked.

“Sure,” Rudy told her. “This couple, they’ll stay right where they are until you decide.”

“Do you think maybe I could meet them?”

Rudy’s stomach did a cartwheel, but he kept his expression neutral. “Yeah, that was my first thought, too. But then I said to myself, ‘Hey, wait, I’m no expert at this kind of thing.’ So I talked to a couple of people, a psychologist I know, and this lawyer friend who handles cases like this all the time, and they both read me the riot act. Said it’d be really nuts to let you meet them. Believe me, Laurel, they’ve been through a lot of this, and they know what’s best. Best for everyone. Trust me on this.”

“Well, I …”

“Can I help you?” A torpedo-chested, gray-bunned

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saleslady was now bustling toward them down the narrow aisle between two rows of cribs.

Shit, Rudy thought. I had her. I just about had her. He felt like kicking the old bat for interrupting them.

“No thanks,” Laurel told her, flushing a little. “Maybe later.”

“I saw you looking at cribs.” The old lady wasn’t backing off. She was standing there like Dick Butkus getting ready to block a tackle. “If I can be of any help, you just let me know. We’re having a sale, you know. Twenty percent off on our floor models. Just until the end of the month, though.”

“That’s nice,” Laurel said.

“Your first?” she asked, glancing at Laurel’s big belly.

Laurel nodded, her cheeks growing pink.

“And you must be Grandpa.” The old lady winked at Rudy. “I’ve got six of my own, and I wouldn’t trade a single one for all the rice in China.”

Grandpa? Rudy wanted to rip the blue-and-pink gingham quilt off the crib in front of him and stuff it down the old busybody’s throat.

“When are you due, dear?”

“March,” Laurel mumbled, her color deepening.

“The end of March, I hope. You know the old saying, ‘March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb.’ You want a little lamb, don’t you?” Twittering, she drifted off toward another customer, calling back over her shoulder. “Just holler if you need me.”

“Come on,” Laurel whispered to Rudy. “Let’s get out of here.”

Outside on Seventh Avenue, Rudy squinted against the sun just now burning its way through a milky grayish haze. Laurel, beside him, wrapped in a hooded woolen cape the same heathery-blue shade as her eyes, was blowing on her fingers to keep them warm. “Buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked.

“Thanks, but I’d better be getting back,” she told him, not looking at him. “Did I tell you? About those drawings my art teacher sent to a publisher friend of hers?

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Well, it turns out she—this publisher-wants me to illustrate a book … a children’s book. I have a meeting with her in an hour to show her some sketches, and I want to get my stuff organized.”

“Hey, that’s terrific. I mean it.” Rudy was happy for her—and God knows, with her talent, she deserved it—but he suspected her real reason for being in such a rush to get home just now was so she could be alone. “Listen, I’ll drop you off.”

Even though her building was only a couple of blocks away, Rudy hailed a cab. Maybe she wouldn’t have coffee with him, but she couldn’t very well say no to a ride.

Minutes later, they were pulling up in front of her building’s soot-blackened brick fa็ade.

“I’ll give you a call sometime tomorrow,” he told her. “Think about what I said.”

“I will,” she told him, again looking as if she might cry. “I really will, Uncle Rudy.” Now she was looking directly at him, her eyes full of pain, and he knew she was telling the truth … that she would think about it. And think hard. He’d made it this far, at least.

Rudy paid the cabbie, and walked back to the baby store. The teddy-bear mobile was still there, bobbing gently above the crib. Thinking of the son or daughter who might soon be his, and feeling ready to burst wide open— fear or happiness? He wasn’t sure which—Rudy approached the gray-haired saleslady and, pointing at the mobile, said calmly, “I’ll take that.”