Designer Genes (9 page)

She thought
about her own childhood. Her father, who’d abandoned the family the day after
her fourth birthday, was nothing but a blurry figure. When she tried to picture
him, the image that popped into her mind was of an actor, Tom Selleck, or
occasionally Sam Neill. She’d happily take either one.

The home she
remembered best from a series of rentals had been an over-the-garage apartment
a block from a major Hollywood thoroughfare. Its outstanding feature had been
its view of a billboard.

While her
mother waitressed, Buffy had baby-sat her younger sister, Stephanie. They would
sit on the steps, memorizing every detail of the latest advertisement on that
sign.

It told them
of romantic movies. Rock stars. Ladies in black silk, luring men to drink
vodka. Once a museum had promoted an exhibit of Impressionist paintings and the
displayed image had been a misty garden vibrant with flowers.

The key
element, to Buffy, had been her longing for a world richer and more special
than the one she lived in. Hope, that’s what the sign had brought.

Carter didn’t
seem to require hope, or ambition. He appeared utterly contented in this small
town, running his garage.

Had he been
equally satisfied growing up? What images had filled his mental billboard and
inspired him to meet the future?

Buffy might
have hoped that one of his wishes was to have a child. But she couldn’t fool
herself anymore. When he donated sperm at the clinic, he’d been under the
impression that in some bizarre fashion he was helping the school district.
Becoming a father hadn’t entered his mind.

This whole
trip to Texas was a crazy idea. She couldn’t make up for her fatherless
childhood by trying to turn Carter into something he wasn’t. Allie would have
to survive on dreams the way Buffy had.

It would be
safest to wait until after she left town, then write him an email, or—if she
worked up the nerve--tell him on the phone. When he cut her off, the pain
wouldn’t last as long as if she saw the disgust on his face. Thank goodness she
hadn’t spilled the truth already. It wasn’t too late to beat a strategic, if
cowardly, retreat once she raised the money to pay for her car repair.

As Allie
finished nursing, Carter emerged from the house with an older man. He was about
the same height and build as Carter except that his checked shirt and jeans
hung loose on a gaunt frame. He had salt-and-pepper hair that might once have
been black.

Buffy
straightened her clothes and patted the baby against her shoulder. “Hi,” she
called through the window. “I’m Buffy.”

“So you are.”
It wasn’t an encouraging response.

“Dad,” Carter
murmured. “She’s my guest.”

“I don’t
recall inviting her to be
my
guest,” was the retort.

Allie wriggled and
turned to see what was going on. Murdock Murchison went stock-still on the
walkway.

“Dad?” said
his son. “What’s wrong?”

“That little
girl,” he said. “Can’t you see the resemblance?”

“What
resemblance?”

“She’s the
spitting image of Emma,” Murdock muttered. “Good Lord, son, your mother’s come
back to life.”

Carter studied
the baby from a fresh perspective. “I knew she reminded me of somebody.”

“We must be
related.” His father shambled to the window. “What’s your last name, Buffy?”

“My married
name’s Arden,” she said.

“What about
before that?”

“My birth name
was Zinkov.”

Murdock shook
his head. “Nope, that’s not the connection. Emma’s maiden name was Phillips.
What about your mom? What was her maiden name?”

“O’Reilly.”
Buffy had a strange look on her face, but no wonder. The man that Carter had
billed as antisocial was chatting as if this were a family reunion.

“We might be
related through your husband,” his father continued. “You wouldn’t happen to
know his mother’s maiden name, would you?”

“I don’t even
know his mother,” Buffy said. “Let alone her maiden name.”

“We ought to
track her down,” Murdock said. “I guess I’ll have to get a computer and learn
to use that Internet thing. I read in a magazine that there’s a geology—that’s
not the word I want, but it’s a next-door neighbor--you know, one of those
sites that tells your family history.”

“Genealogy.”
Judging by the way Buffy was cringing, she must believe Dad was doomed to
disappointment. Of course, Carter knew as well as she did that they weren’t
likely to be related, but he couldn’t help rejoicing at his father’s display of
interest.

“If you like,
I’ll help you set up a computer,” Carter said. “Or maybe one of those tablets.”

“You do that.
And get on it fast!” Murdock smacked his hand against the truck door for
emphasis. Allie let out a cry. “Hey, honey, I didn’t mean to frighten you. You
sure are a cute little girl.”

Then Buffy did
something that made Carter want to hug her. She said, “Would you like to hold
the baby?”

From the side,
he saw his father’s face glow with anticipation. “May I?”

“Sure.” She
angled Allie carefully through the open window. “She just ate, so you might
want to be careful.”

“I won’t hurt
the little doll.” But as Murdock gripped the baby’s sides, he must have pressed
her tummy. Right on cue, a white spot blossomed on his shirt.

“Oh, I’m so
sorry!”

“That’s
nothing.” He held the little girl out where they could gaze into each other’s
eyes, and addressed her directly. “I can see you’re going to be a real
handful.” To Buffy, he said, “What’s her name?”

“Alison. Allie
for short.”

“Well, Miss
Allie, don’t you go dating any of these local boys until I check them out for
you,” Murdock told the baby. “If they get fresh, you upchuck on their shirts.
I’ve seen that you know how to do it.”

“Da?” she
said.

The man’s
expression filled with wonder. The weathered creases and the world-weariness
vanished and Carter glimpsed his father as he must have looked fifty years ago,
young and in love.

“I wish I were
your Da,” he told Allie. “We never had a daughter. We sure would have liked
to.”

That was news
to Carter. He’d never known much about his parents’ inner lives, their wishes
and dreams and sorrows. It had probably never occurred to them to discuss their
feelings, any more than it occurred to him.

“You have to
come over for dinner this week so you and Allie can get better acquainted,”
Buffy said. “How about Saturday?”

“What’s
today?”

“Wednesday.”

Murdock
thought for a moment, as if he had a busy social calendar to review. “I guess I
can do that.”

“I’ll pick you
up at five.” Carter got behind the wheel.

Reluctantly
his father handed the baby to her mother. “She favors you a bit, but that’s not
the part that looks like Emma. Must be through your husband. It’d be funny if
he turned out to be kin.”

“It wouldn’t
be funny, it would be awful,” she said. “My ex is not a nice person.”

“Good
character can skip a generation.” Murdock beamed at his son. “Although not in
our case.”

The man was
brimming over with the milk of human kindness today, Carter thought. He hoped
it wouldn’t go sour anytime soon.

“We’ll see you
Saturday,” he told his dad as he put the truck in gear. When they reached the
main road, he said, “I haven’t seen him this happy in years.”

“Carter...”
Buffy paused, and he sensed she was working up to something. “Would it be so
terrible if Allie were related to you?”

He hoped he
was wrong about her motive. In his limited experience, however, strangers
didn’t claim to be related without a nefarious motive. “You wouldn’t be trying
to persuade me to lower that bill, would you?”

She stared at
him in dismay. “Of course not!”

“Then why
speculate about such a thing?”

“I just..
.never mind.” She turned away.

“Ba ba,” said
Allie. “Ba ba da da.”

“Aren’t they
supposed to say ‘goo goo’?” he asked, hoping to jolly Buffy into talking to him
again, but she ignored him.

He hadn’t been
very tactful, Carter supposed. The truth was, he’d fallen out of practice in
relating to women on a boy-girl level. His mother would have said he’d reverted
to the wild-bachelor state.

Not long
before she died, she’d urged him to find a wife. A good marriage was the key to
happiness, she’d said, and his father had nodded in agreement.

Out of respect
for his mother, Carter had taken a closer look at the various women he knew in
town, without experiencing even a glimmer of bliss. He’d dropped into a square
dance over in Groundhog Station as well. That hadn’t worked, either, and until
now he’d put his mother’s advice out of his mind.

It occurred to
Carter that he didn’t really know whether he was happy. He had assumed that he
was, until last night. Meeting Buffy had stirred up longings he’d believed were
confined to his fantasies.

A what-if sort of man
might suppose that he and Buffy were suited to each other. They talked easily,
and it didn’t take much imagination to know they would fit together in bed.

If only she
wasn’t such a quick-witted, glittery woman, the kind that could tie him up in
knots until he behaved like a fool. Heck, she’d done it to him once already in
Los Angeles.

He needed a
solid, small-town girl like Mimsy Miles. Except the only things he wanted to do
with his old classmate were go fishing or watch a football game on TV.

Buffy didn’t
speak again for the rest of the ride home. He must have hurt her feelings,
Carter thought regretfully.

But he was
grateful for the distance between them, too.

*

Buffy had
tried to tell Carter the truth. He’d refused to hear it. Worse, he’d accused
her of having an ulterior motive.

She went to
bed feeling restless, and drifted in and out of sleep all night. She had vague,
tangled dreams about Carter lying beside her. He was a sexy man, with a firm
mouth and kind eyes. As for his hands, she felt certain they could tweak and
tune and tease her body till she hummed like a Lexus.

Oh, hell, make it a
Rolls-Royce.

In the
morning, while her daughter slept late, she mentally reviewed Murdock’s
enthusiasm for Allie. Didn’t he have a right to know that he was a grandfather,
regardless of how his son felt on the subject? “This is ridiculous,” she told
Toast as she folded away her sleeping bag. “What a mess.”

The cat walked
over and sniffed the bag. Its nose wrinkled disapprovingly.

“You think it
has fleas? Think again!” Buffy said. “Are you listening or what?”

The cat
regarded her steadily. Taking a seat, it began licking its paws.

“Well, first
things first, wouldn’t you say?” Buffy continued, pleased to be assured of an
audience. “If I can pay Carter what I owe, maybe he’ll be less suspicious of my
motives.”

It was
reassuring to have a goal. Once she raised, say, a thousand dollars as a down
payment, she would lay everything on the line for him about Allie’s origins.
Then she would clear out of Nowhere Junction and send him the rest of the money
from wherever.

An hour later,
having eaten breakfast, fed the baby and entrusted her to a delighted Mazeppa,
Buffy set off on foot into Nowhere Junction. It was only four blocks to the
Weinbucket Real Estate office.

On the way,
she noted the location of the Nowhere Junction Hospital. Despite her
appreciation for advertising, she was glad it wasn’t called the Caring Hearts
of Texas Medical Center or The Hometown Family Center for Better Health. There
was something to be said for giving places straightforward names.

Good heavens,
this town was starting to make sense to her. What did that signify? She hoped
she wasn’t losing her edge.

Rather than
edge, brink might be a better term, Buffy reflected. She was perched on the
brink of destruction, unless she could beg or borrow a store.

At the real
estate office, she saw that the front window displayed photographs of ranches.
Other than that, there didn’t appear to be any property for sale in Nowhere
Junction.

Inside, two
desks sat empty. When no one answered Buffy’s “hello?” she walked through a
connecting door into the bank, which was nearly empty, too.

“Isn’t there
anyone in the real estate office?” she asked the lone teller, a woman in her
late thirties with thickly braided light brown hair.

The woman
looked up with a start from her romance novel. Cissy Leroy—as she was
identified on a nameplate on the counter—regarded her with wide-eyed interest.
“You must be Buffy!”

“That’s right.
How did you know?”

Cissy, who
wore a blouse covered with tiny flowers, gestured at Buffy’s outfit. Today,
she’d selected a straight black skirt and a V-necked white blouse with a
turquoise cummerbund. “Nobody else dresses like that around here.”

Buffy chose to
take the remark as a compliment. “Thanks. I’m looking for a store to rent,” she
said. “On consignment or credit, if that’s possible. I don’t have any money up
front.”

“I never heard
of anybody renting on consignment.” Cissy sighed. “I work in the real estate
office, too. But the only vacant store we’ve listed is that one next to the
grocery. Gigi owns it and, believe me, that woman strikes a hard bargain.”

“It doesn’t
have to be a real store.” Buffy was aware that she had to be flexible, in light
of her budgetary limitations. “Maybe someone has a spare storage unit that
opens on a busy street.”
Was
there a busy street in Nowhere Junction?
“Or a kiosk I could set up on the sidewalk, although that would make it hard
for customers to try on clothes.”