She'd been around enough reporters in her life to know one when she saw one. This one had that rumpled look, that nosy stance, that I'm-not-going-away-until-you-talk-to-me air.
The kitchen light was blazing, casting an unfortunate spotlight on her, but Jillian wasn't about to make this easy for him. She averted her eyes, pretended she hadn't noticed him noticing her, went to the phone and dialed 9-1-1.
"There's a man lurking outside my window," she told the operator and gave her address. "I think he's a Peeping Tom."
She hung up to more window taps, which were making it increasingly hard for her to pretend she didn't hear. To cover up the noise, she broke into a song but stopped after a couple of bars. Her voice might sound different than it had 12 years ago but she was still cursed with tell-tale perfect pitch and outstanding range.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the man was making hand gestures. Wide, sweeping ones. She turned her back, went into her living room, whistled for Xena, and opened the front door. "Go get him, girl," she told the dog and shut the door fast.
She rested the back of her head against a wall. She'd always known that one of these days a stranger would come skulking around, looking for her.
Her parents had taken pains to make sure it didn't happen, spiriting her away to a small French town when she was a child and letting five years pass until puberty had changed her so much she was barely recognizable.
Still, Jillian hadn't taken any chances. She'd cut and permed her trademark long blond hair, changed her name and hadn't gone near anyone or anything associated with the entertainment industry.
Nobody should have guessed that a physical-education teacher living in a small college town nestled in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania had once been dubbed by the press as the most famous child star since Shirley Temple.
Except that the horrid, handsome man outside her house had figured it out.
She ignored Xena's furious barks, the doorbell, and the man's shouts of, "I know you're in there." Eventually he stopped trying to get her to answer the door. She waited for the cops.
Maybe it wasn't fair to sic her dog on him and have him arrested, but she wasn't ready to be thrust back into the spotlight she'd run from a dozen years before.
She wasn't ready for the nation to get the answer to the question they'd never stopped asking: What ever happened to Marylou "Babycakes" Malone?
Was Aunt Midge's gorgeous next-door neighbor hard of hearing? Is that why she hadn't heard him tapping on her window and ringing her doorbell?
The possibility ran through Bailey Donahue's mind as he walked from the front porch to the back of the woman's house, his progress slowed by the yapping toy poodle at his heels.
If he hadn't been wearing pants, his shins would have claw marks from the little dog trying to crawl up his legs. Did the dog belong to the deaf woman?
He resumed his position at her kitchen window, which he'd only assumed in the first place because she didn't have a back door and he'd thought she saw him. He moved his arms like a runway worker signaling a plane to land.
Standing at the window made him feel like a voyeur, but he was determined to be seen if not heard. The poodle was still yelping so he bent down and picked it up, getting a tongue bath for his troubles.
"Put your arms in the air where I can see them and turn around very slowly."
The voice was deep, menacing, and most probably belonged to a cop. Damn. He didn't think the cop would take kindly to him bending over to put the poodle down so he held it in one hand and raised both of his arms overhead.
When he turned around, the glow of the moon allowed him to see that a large uniformed man with a shaved scalp was holding a gun on him. Yep, most definitely a cop.
"What's that in your hand?" the cop growled. The poodle yapped.
"It's my Xena. He's trying to steal my Xena!" The deaf woman, who had surprisingly good diction, suddenly appeared behind the cop. It was too dark to see her well, but he already knew from gazing through the window that she was a beauty. Too bad she was delusional.
"I'm not a thief. I picked up the dog because it wouldn't stop jumping on me," Bailey explained.
"Bad Xena." The woman, who'd obviously heard what he said, shook her finger at the airborne dog. So she wasn't deaf, after all. "How can you be a warrior princess if you get your head turned by a handsome face?"
"Hey, I resent that," Bailey protested, then thought about what she'd said. "I think."
"Put the dog down slowly," the cop said. To the woman, he said, "Stay behind me, where you're safe from the Peeping Tom."
"I'm not a Peeping Tom," Bailey said as he set down the dog, who jumped on his pant leg again. "I'm here visiting my aunt Midge. She said her neighbor had a key."
"I don't know anybody named Midge," the woman said, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "You better book 'im."
Bailey tried to give his aunt's full name, but the cop interrupted him before he could spit it out.
"You better not say anything else 'til I read you your rights," the cop said. "You're going to jail."
"Hello, Jillian," said the familiar voice on the other end of the telephone line. "This is Margaret Donahue. I was calling to let you know that I told my nephew Bailey you had the spare key to my house. I need to stay at this conference a few more days, but he's to make himself at home."
Jillian nearly choked on the breakfast bagel she was munching. Before he was taken away in handcuffs the night before, the man who'd been peering into her window had said something about his aunt.
"Does anybody call you Midge?" Jillian asked fearfully.
"Only family," Margaret said. "Anyway, be nice to my nephew. He works too hard. I can hardly believe I finally talked him into coming to visit for some much-needed R and R."
Jillian stood by the phone in a daze for a full minute after she'd hung up. The hunk at the window last night hadn't been a reporter bent on exposing her as Babycakes Malone. He hadn't been a Peeping Tom, either. He'd been her next-door neighbor's visiting nephew.
Forty-five minutes later, she was intensely aware of Bailey Donahue as he sat beside her during the drive through the Hemlock State College campus on the way back to his aunt's house.
"I'd thank you for springing me from jail if you hadn't gotten me thrown into it," he said wryly.
"I'm sorry. I thought you were a…" she'd been going to say she'd thought him a reporter about to tell the world that the dimpled cherub who'd played Babycakes on television was now a physical-education teacher living in Hemlock, Pennsylvania "…Peeping Tom," she finished.
"Peeping Toms don't tap on windows and ring doorbells."
"You never can tell," she said. "Nobody goes with the flow anymore. Everybody has his own m.o. Why not a Peeping Tom?"
She'd thought he looked rumpled last night, but he was more so now. His eyes were bloodshot, he'd obviously slept in his clothes, and the jail must not have provided a razor. So why did he look so sexy?
"It was partly my fault for getting here a day earlier than I told Aunt Midge." He slanted her a half grin. "And I don't blame you. Really. If I were a Peeping Tom, I couldn't pick a more beautiful woman to peep at."
The compliment warmed her. It felt wonderful to be flirted with by somebody as handsome and charming as Bailey.
"Your aunt says you're a workaholic. Where exactly is it that you work?"
"It's called Insightful. You may have heard of it. It's a national magazine based in Philadelphia."
"You're not a reporter, are you?" Jillian asked, trying to keep the dread out of her voice. Not everyone who worked at a magazine reported the news. Magazines had advertising departments, promotion managers, sales staffs.…
"Sure am," Bailey said. "You make the news, I report it."
Jillian experienced a jolt of panic so intense she nearly drove the car into a ditch. She jerked the wheel to right the car and made herself give him a bright smile. "How lovely," she said.
Meanwhile, her mind whirled. Surely his statement had been innocent. When he said you make the news, he didn't actually mean she was the newsmaker. After she'd introduced herself at the police station as Jillian Foster, he hadn't pointed out her better-known name was Babycakes Malone. So Bailey was a reporter. That didn't mean he was in Hemlock to work on a story.
"Your aunt said you were here for rest and relaxation," she said.
He cleared his throat. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-three," she answered. Her mind leaped, making her pulse jump. "Why? Are you thinking you might want to relax with me?"
He laughed, a deep, pleasant sound that warmed her insides. "I might take you up on that. Except first I should confess I'm not exactly here to relax."
Relax, she told herself. It's still a long shot that he's here looking for you. "Oh, no? Why are you here then?"
"Can you keep a secret?"
She nodded. She'd kept one for 12 years, hadn't she?
"I wouldn't tell you this if you were three years younger, but I'm looking for somebody."
Jillian gulped. If she were three years younger, she'd be 20, which is the age most everybody believed Babycakes would be now. Hardly anybody knew her stage manager had sliced three years off her age because she was so petite she looked younger than her years.
"Who are you looking for?" she asked as she pulled the car up in front of his aunt's house. Good thing they'd arrived. Trembling hands made it hard to drive.
"Babycakes Malone," he said, and Jillian's world collapsed. "You probably remember her. The child star who left show business at the height of her fame. Nobody knows where she went or what happened to her."
Jillian gulped. "And you do?"
"Not yet. But I aim to find out. One of my aunt's friends told her she'd seen Babycakes in town. Aunt Midge doesn't know it but I'm chasing the story."
Oh, Lord. Left to his own devices, he was bound to discover that Jillian was Babycakes. Unless…she could steer him wrong.
"Hemlock's a small town and you're a stranger, but I'm a local," she said slowly. "Tell you what. I'll help you find Babycakes."
Somebody was ringing Aunt Midge's doorbell at the unthinkable hour of three in the afternoon. Unthinkable because it had been noon before Bailey, who'd spent a sleepless night on a cold, hard cot at the county jail, had finally dozed.
He covered his head with a pillow, trying to recapture the glorious dream in which Babycakes Malone skipped up to his side and said in her gee-whiz voice, "Heard you were looking for me, Mister. Wouldn't want you to lose your job if you didn't find me."
The ringing went on and on, jarring him back to reality. Babycakes wasn't going to appear on his doorstep begging to be found. And if she did, she'd look like a woman instead of the golden-haired child star of yesteryear.
"I'm coming," he growled as he got out of the too-soft bed in his absent aunt's guestroom. He was in a foul mood by the time he flung open the door.
"I'm ready to start," said the petite blonde from next door who'd falsely accused him of being a Peeping Tom.
She pranced by him into the house, looking adorably sexy in gym shorts and a T-shirt. His fuzzy brain remembered that her name was Jillian Foster, that she was a physical-education teacher and that he found something so compelling about her big-eyed, heart-shaped face that he couldn't take his eyes off her.
There was something else he should remember, too, but his sleep-addled mind could only work so fast.
"I didn't wake you, did I?" Jillian peered at him, her bottom lip caught between her perfect, white teeth. Her short hair was a mass of dark-blond curls.
"Oh, no," he denied and clipped his big, bare toe with the door when he tried to close it. He jumped back, stifling a curse as he finally woke up. "Well, maybe."
"Oops. I rushed over here as soon as school ended thinking you'd want to start right away," she said, and he remembered the elusive piece of information about Jillian Foster.
He'd unwisely accepted her offer to help in the search for Babycakes.
"I do want to start," he said but what he really wanted to do was pull her into his arms and kiss her pretty mouth, which was exactly why he shouldn't have said she could help.
To keep his job, he needed to track down Babycakes. Simple as that. Insightful Magazine was changing its focus from hard news, his specialty, to feature stories. And there was major doubt that he could write the lighter stuff.
He didn't need a distraction and prepared to tell her so. Then she smiled at him. Hey, he reasoned, Jillian was a local. Maybe she could help.
"What are you going to do first?" she asked.
"Call the woman who told my aunt Babycakes was in town."
She chewed her bottom lip, and he waited for her to spout words of wisdom. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"How could calling the professor who told my aunt she thinks Babycakes is in town be a bad idea?" Bailey's strong brow furrowed. "She's my only lead."
Jillian tapped her chin, desperately trying to think of an answer that would keep him from discovering she was the former child star he was looking for.
"Your aunt thinks you came to Hemlock for rest and relaxation. She'll be upset if she finds out you're chasing a story for your magazine."
"She's in Texas at a conference on molecular biology. How's she going to find out?"
I'll shout it from the rooftops if I have to, Jillian thought. Aloud, she said, "Her friend might tell her. Then you'd be in deep trouble."
Her argument wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to anyone over the age of 10, which he'd figure out in a moment. Maybe she should try another approach. He claimed he found her beautiful. Maybe she should flirt with him. She batted her eyelashes. He stared. Good. Very good.
"Your eyes weren't brown this morning, were they? I could have sworn they were light-colored. Either blue or green."
Bad. Very bad. He'd been so sleepy that morning she hadn't thought he noticed she had Babycakes's green eyes. She should have figured that reporters fastened on details before she freaked and got out her colored contacts.
"Nope. I'm a brown-eyed girl. Born that way. Stayed that way. Will always be that way."
He was looking at her curiously so she shut up. "Coffee. I need coffee," he said. "I must still be half-asleep."
Within minutes, they were sitting in his aunt's kitchen, coffee cups cradled in their hands while Jillian silently railed at herself for being attracted to a member of the press. The press had made her childhood so miserable she'd hidden in France for five years.
But railing didn't help. Bailey still made her mouth water more than coffee ever could. His light-brown hair was mussed, his lips looked soft from sleep and his eyes, which were a legitimate brown, made her think of the bedroom.
"So tell me what my first move should be?" he asked.
"That depends on what you know about Babycakes."
"I know what everybody else knows. She played a child genius in the TV show that gave her the name. The nation fell in love with her. Then she dropped out of sight. She was eight years old."
Eleven, actually, but he didn't need to know that. "She's most likely a college coed. I think you should roam the campus until you find her."
"I know what she looked like at eight. I don't have a clue what she'd look like at 20," Bailey said. "No offense, Jillian, but I think you may be journalistically challenged. I'm calling that friend of my aunt's."
"Let me see if I've got this straight," the source told Bailey, who held the phone out from his ear. Her voice squeaked more than Tweety Bird's. "You're visiting your aunt, who thinks you're in Hemlock to get away from it all, and instead you're working on a story for your magazine?"
Jillian had been right. Victoria Van Dyke would probably call Aunt Midge and tattle on him as soon as they got off the phone.
"My aunt's still in Texas, Mrs. Van Dyke," he said politely. "I need to keep busy until she comes back, and what better way than to solve the Babycakes mystery."
The woman made a noise that sounded like a tweet but was probably a sigh. "Didn't Babycakes used to be the cutest thing? The way she sang and danced and tossed her long blond hair?"
"Ah, yes," Bailey said. "Now about her whereabouts…"
"Don't tell me you think I know where she is."
Patience, Bailey told himself. It was the harbinger of all good things. "My aunt said you mentioned Babycakes was in town."
"I said I heard Babycakes was in town. From Rose Fitzgibbons. But I'm sure she didn't actually see the girl. Rose never met a piece of gossip she didn't repeat. And who knows who she heard it from. She eavesdrops, you know."
Bailey sighed. "Well, thanks for your help anyhow, Mrs. Van Dyke. Listen, if you happen to hear anything else about Babycakes, will you give me a call here at my aunt's house? Thanks." Bailey hung up and turned to Jillian. "Well, no help there."
Jillian gazed up at him with her deep brown eyes, her soft lips slightly parted. Suddenly Bailey found himself thinking more about kissing Jillian than writing a story that would keep the editors at Insightful Magazine from firing him.
He stepped closer to her, and then he was no longer only thinking about kissing her. He cupped her head, tangled his fingers in her short, blond hair and captured her mouth. Her lips clung to his, soft and sweet and pliant.
"Who is that you're kissing, dear?"
They sprang apart to see an elderly woman looking curiously at them from the sidewalk. Darn, Bailey hadn't closed the door completely, and it had swung open.
"This is Bailey Donahue, Margaret's nephew," Jillian said, her cheeks adorably flushed. She introduced the old-timer as another of his aunt's neighbors.
"Watch him," the lady warned. "He looks like a fast worker to me."
Bailey was about to refute that when the telephone rang. Thinking it might be the return call he was expecting, he motioned Jillian inside the house. Five minutes later, he hung up the phone.
"That was another source," he said. "She heard about the Babycakes sighting from Trudy Best."
"The hairdresser at Best Cuts? She cuts my hair."
"That's good," Bailey said as his mind whirled. In a moment, he had a plan. "Jillian, would you consider going to the beauty shop under cover to help me find Babycakes Malone?"
"You're asking me to go under cover with my own hairdresser?" Jillian wasn't sure whether to feel panicked or confused. "What am I supposed to do? Pretend to get my hair cut?"
"Under cover might have been too strong a word." Bailey stroked his chin. "You'd have to actually get your hair cut. Hairdressers don't gossip unless somebody's in the chair."
"Why can't Trudy gossip to you instead of me?"
"She's more likely to tell a regular than a stranger who told her Babycakes is in town. Hairdressers are like good reporters. They spread the news, but don't reveal their sources."
Jillian nearly protested that "good reporter" was a contradiction in terms but she couldn't afford to raise Bailey's suspicions.
"Will you do it?" he asked, tipping his head cajolingly.
She might have been able to refuse if she couldn't still feel the imprint of his mouth on hers. But how could she say no? She was a sucker for a man who could curl her toes.
A little while later, Jillian watched through a giant mirror as Trudy, whose dark hair was so long she'd probably never had it cut, fingered Jillian's wet hair.
Bailey was in the chair next to hers, having managed to get a coinciding appointment with the silent-as-a-mime hairdresser in the adjacent station.
"I'm so glad you had a cancellation," Jillian told Trudy. "I couldn't wait another day to get my hair cut."
Deep lines furrowed Trudy's forehead. "Weren't you just here two weeks ago?"
Jillian flicked a nervous glance at Bailey, who didn't need a haircut, either. "Wing it," he lip-synched.
"You know what they say about us women," Jillian said airily. "We can never be too rich, too young, or too well shorn."
"Hey, I like your version," Trudy said and proceeded to snip. "Have you ever thought about letting this perm grow all the way out and going au natural?"
Jillian closed her eyes. Babycakes had straight hair. She didn't want Bailey to know that she did, too. "Curly is natural for me. You know I only perm my hair to get it curlier."
Trudy opened her mouth, probably to call her a liar, so Jillian feigned a coughing spell. "Must've gotten some hairs caught in my throat," she said when she was fairly certain Trudy had forgotten what they'd been talking about.
"Ask her." Bailey's reflection gave Jillian the silent command, which she wanted to ignore but couldn't.
"Wonder what ever happened to Babycakes Malone?" she blurted out. So much for undercover subtlety.
"Funny you should mention her," Trudy said and dread filled the pit of Jillian's stomach. "One of the professors over at Hemlock told me he'd seen her in town."
Bailey caught Jillian's eye in the mirror and mouthed, "Who?"
"Did you ask who told me?" Trudy looked up. "Hamilton Farragut."
A sheer act of will kept Jillian from gasping aloud. The name was one she knew well from childhood. Too well.
Jillian trailed Bailey into the office in his aunt's house a half hour later, wondering how she was going to stop him from talking to Hamilton Farragut.
If anybody could recognize Babycakes Malone, even if she was all grown up and disguised as small-town physical-education teacher Jillian Foster, it would be Ham Farragut.
Why did Trudy have to damage the reputation of circumspect hairdressers everywhere by blabbing his name like that? She'd opened up like a spigot turned to full blast.
"I know my aunt has a staff directory somewhere," Bailey riffled through the papers on the desk with a single-minded determination that thrilled as well as dismayed Jillian. It figured that intensity was one of the traits that attracted her.
"Can you believe this stroke of luck," he continued as he riffled. "Who would have thought Hunter Green worked at Hemlock State College?"
"Hunter Green," Jillian repeated, keeping enough of her wits about her to play dumb. "Who's he?"
Bailey lifted his head and grinned at her. Even though both of them had their hair cut so short they'd be wise to steer clear of marine recruiting stations, he looked so appealing that her breath snagged. It'd serve her right if she suffocated. Here he was on the verge of discovering she was Babycakes and she thought he was cute.
"Who's Hunter Green?" he repeated. "Just the guy who played the dad on the TV show where Babycakes was a child genius. I think he was the flaky one."
"The mom was the flaky one. The dad was the egomaniac who carried a hand mirror in his shirt pocket," Jillian said. The role hadn't been much of a stretch. That's why the show's cast had shortened his name from Hamilton to Ham.
Bailey laughed and went back to his search while Jillian's desperation grew. She'd gone to college at Hemlock State and had lived in the surrounding town for two years. Why hadn't she known Ham Farragut was a professor here?
"Here it is," Bailey said, pulling a thin black book from the papers on his aunt's desk. Jillian thought about making a grab for the directory, but he was already leafing through it. "Farragut's not listed. He must be new to the staff."
He picked up the telephone and started to punch in numbers.
"What are you doing?" Jillian crossed the office and put her hand on his arm. She was unprepared for the jolt of awareness that zinged through her.
"Calling directory assistance," he said, but he was no longer dialing. The intensity she'd found so compelling a few moments ago was focused entirely on her.
She barely stopped herself from winding her arms around his neck and telling him with her kiss that she wanted to make love to him. But that was crazy. He was the reporter trying to expose her secret, which would probably come out if he talked to Ham Farragut. Then again, maybe making love to him wouldn't be so crazy if it stopped him from talking to Ham.
"I know of something we can do that's more exciting than calling directory assistance," she said huskily.
Thoughts of questioning Hamilton Farragut about the whereabouts of Babycakes Malone disappeared like keyboard strokes that meet the delete key. Had Jillian just invited him to make love to her?
Bailey's body hardened at the thought. He was a reporter who knew better than to let a woman distract him from getting a story, but at the moment he didn't care what he knew.
He wanted Jillian, had wanted her from the moment he'd first seen her through her kitchen window, swaying to the beat of some imaginary song. His quest to find the former child star who could save his job would have to wait.
"When you said you knew of something exciting we could do," he whispered, "did you mean what I think you meant?"
She licked her lips, blinked her eyelashes, and nodded. Heat flooded him. He was right. She was propositioning him. He put down the phone, pushed his fingers through her short hair, lowered his head, and…
"Xena must be hungry by now." Her breath teased his lips. "Feeding her's exciting on account of how she tries to crawl up your leg when you're filling her bowl."
His mouth froze six inches from hers. "You were talking about your poodle?"
"Yes," she said but her eyes flickered away from his. "Want to help?"
He wanted to do something a heck of a lot more intimate than feeding a rambunctious toy poodle, but it was a woman's prerogative to change her mind. He followed Jillian to her house next door in the hopes that she might change it back again.
"She likes you," Jillian said when Xena bypassed jumping for the bowl of food she was preparing to jumping on Bailey's leg. "I've never seen her hop like that."
"How about you?" he asked, sidling close to her. He thought he heard her breath hitch. "Do you like me?"
"Sure," she said and set down the dog's bowl. Xena didn't notice the bowl of food until Jillian peeled her from Bailey's pant leg and set her in front of it.
"Then why did you change your mind about seducing me?" He couldn't see her face because he was standing behind her, but he saw her shoulders tense. A terrible thought hit him. "Please tell me you don't have a boyfriend."
She turned, raising her eyes to his. "No boyfriend," she said, then hesitated. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"My job keeps me so busy I don't have time for a girlfriend." He stopped. "Scratch that. I haven't wanted to make time for a girlfriend." He lowered his voice. "Until now."
He took a step toward her, put his hands on her shoulders, felt her tremble. "You didn't answer me. Why did you change your mind about seducing me?"
"I didn't change my mind," she whispered. "I lost my nerve."
"I've got plenty of nerve for both of us," Bailey said and scooped her into his arms.
Jillian lost track of the reason she'd lured Bailey to her bed as soon as he started to undress her. Heck, maybe she'd lost her mind the moment he touched her.
"I love the way you look," he said when he was staring down at breasts she'd always thought were too small and hips that had never seemed to have enough flare.
"I bet I'd love the way you look, too," she hinted. He had his clothes off in a flash, revealing a hard, muscled body that made her breath catch.
"I was right," she said as he joined her on the bed. He laughed.
"I love the way you feel," he said as his hands caressed first her hips and then her breasts. Her toes curled. Again.
She reached for him. "Ditto," she said before their mouths met in a series of drugging kisses that robbed her of everything but desire. Somehow, amid the mad passion, they got him sheathed. Then those large, sure hands were on her hips, pulling her to him as their bodies fused.
Jillian's last coherent thought as he moved inside her was that she'd made it a matter of principle to thoroughly know a man before she made love to him. This wasn't an exception. Her heart knew Bailey.
A long time later, Bailey and Jillian lay spent and tangled in each other's arms, the only sounds the ticking of her bedside clock and Xena's muffled barks.
"Considering how Xena feels about you," Jillian said lazily, "I'm surprised she's not in bed with us."
Bailey propped himself up on one elbow and grinned down at her. "I kicked the door closed on the way in. I thought having your poodle watch might inhibit you."
She smiled back at him, thinking that luring him into her bed had been a very good idea indeed. She frowned as she recalled her original reason for luring him. She'd wanted to keep him from talking to Ham Farragut and finding out she was Babycakes.
One of his large hands slowly, sensually stroked her hip. She sighed. Why had a lovely man like Bailey become a reporter?
"Just about everybody in my family's a reporter," he said, a bemused expression on his handsome face, and she realized she'd asked the question aloud.
Now that the subject was on the table — er, bed — maybe she could make him see reason. "But don't you worry about invading privacy? Take Babycakes, for example. If she doesn't want to be found, isn't that her right?"
"The public has a right to know," he replied automatically, his hand moving from her hips to her breast. "The journalists in my family have a saying. Just Don't Do It…or We'll Print It."
She was about to argue but then he lowered himself so that his body was aligning hers and heat pooled deep inside her. She'd worry about him being a member of the press later, she promised herself, as she enthusiastically returned his kiss.
But later turned into so much later that it was morning before Jillian thought about anything at all except making love to Bailey. She woke up at 10 to a note propped against the lamp on her end table.
Didn't want to wake you. Went to talk to Farragut alone.
Jillian's heart plummeted to the soles of her feet when she rounded the corner to Ham Farragut's house and saw Bailey's car parked in front of it.
That morning's mad scramble to find out where her former TV dad lived and intercept Bailey before he got to him had been for nothing. Even now, Ham could be telling Bailey that Jillian was Babycakes Malone.
Jillian pulled her car away from the curb, wondering how fast she could pack her bags and get out of town. Away from the glare of publicity she'd never wanted. And away from Bailey, who she feared she'd always want.
A block away, she slammed on the brakes and determinedly wiped away her tears. Ham had seen her but he didn't necessarily know what name she was using. And if he didn't know her name, she wouldn't have to leave.
Minutes later, she cast a furtive look around to make sure nobody was watching, got on the balls of her feet, and crept up to Ham's house like a cat burglar on the prowl.
She kept low when she got to the house, making like a jack-in-the-box as she peered into windows for a glimpse of the two men. She heard their voices coming from the back of the house and hid behind the thick hedges bracketing the open-air porch.
"Of course I'd love to talk to you about Babycakes," said a man with a sonorous voice she immediately recognized as belonging to Ham. "The show was so popular I'm sure people will want to read about what the star is doing now. Where's your camera? Your readers will want to see photos of me, too."
Jillian rolled her eyes as she pictured Ham smoothing his already perfectly coiffed hair back from his classic-featured face.
"I'm not here to talk about Babycakes the show, Professor Farragut." It was Bailey's voice, the same one that had whispered seductive words in her ear the night before when they'd made love. A heavy liquid sensation rolled through her.
"Call me Hunter, as in Hunter Green," Ham said.
"Sure…Hunter," Bailey said. "As I was saying, I'd like to talk about Babycakes the actress."
"Just between you and me, the kid was jealous of me," Ham said in a stage whisper. "But I couldn't help it if I was a scene stealer. The female viewers loved me. It's probably the eyes. They're hunter green, you know."
"They're very nice," Bailey said. "But about Babycakes —"
"I'm sure she lied about her age but the producers must have forced her to so they could get me on the show. I hardly looked old enough to be her father as it was."
"Professor Far… I mean Hunter. I hear you think Babycakes is in town. Can you tell me why?"
"Why?" He sounded surprised. "Because I saw her. Just a glimpse across campus. But enough to know it was her."
So Ham didn't know what name she was using. Relief poured through Jillian as she backed away from the row of hedges and circled around the front of the house, only to find a large, bald cop shaking his head as he walked up to her.
"I'd have thought you'd know better than this," he said. "I'm going to have to take you in for being a Peeping Tom… uh, make that a Peeping Tina."
Bailey had barely said goodbye to Hamilton Farragut before he starting envisioning Jillian the way he'd left her that morning, all sleepy and warm and sexy.
But he wouldn't have conjured up a daydream with her wearing baggy sweat pants and an oversize red T-shirt, shouting, "I am not a Peeping Tina," at a big, bald cop. So that could only mean the scene he saw in front of Hamilton Farragut's house was reality instead of fantasy.
"Would a Peeping Tina wear red?" Jillian asked the same cop who'd arrested him. "Would a Peeping Tina peep in broad daylight at a couple of clothed men on a back porch?"
"Criminals aren't known for their brains. That's why they get caught," the cop said and put his hand on her head so she wouldn't bump it on the way into the squad car.
Bailey took off for the pair of them at a dead run, yelling, "Hey, what's going on?"
Jillian looked glad to see him, but the cop's eyes narrowed. He didn't remove his hand from Jillian's head. "Aren't you the Peeping Tom from the other night?"
"I was vindicated," Bailey said.
"Doesn't mean you're innocent. For all I know, you taught your voyeur tricks to this young lady here. A neighbor saw her creeping around looking into windows and called it in."
Impossible, Bailey thought. Jillian wouldn't peer into windows. She must've figured out where Farragut lived and come to join him. Simple as that. The neighbor had to be mistaken.
"She came here to meet me," he said.
"What?" Jillian and the cop asked in unison. The cop gave Jillian a suspicious look.
"I meant to say, 'What else would I be doing here?'" she said, then turned pleading eyes to Bailey. "Right, Bailey?"
"Right," he said, wondering why she was acting so skittish. The truth, after all, was the best defense. "I came to talk to Professor Farragut for a magazine story I hope to write about Babycakes Malone and —"
"Babycakes," the cop interrupted. "You mean that cute little kid who used to be on TV? Didn't somebody kidnap her?"
"Certainly not," Jillian said sharply. Bailey was wondering at the heat in her voice when she added more calmly, "Don't you remember? Her family issued a statement saying she was leaving show business."
"But what happened to her?" the cop asked.
"That's what I'm trying to find out," Bailey said and nodded toward Jillian. "With the lady's help."
"Considering it's for a good cause," the cop said grudgingly, "I guess I can make an exception and let her go."
"Then could you take your hand off my head?" Jillian asked through gritted teeth.
Bailey was still chuckling over the incident a few hours later as Jillian preceded him into a restaurant renowned for its pizza.
"That wasn't the funniest part," Jillian said, laughing up at him. "The funniest part was when he said he better not see another peep out of either of us."
She faced forward at the same time he spotted the man with hunter-green eyes waiting at their table.
"Did I mention that Hamilton Farragut was meeting us for lunch?" Bailey asked.
The lump that caught in Jillian's throat was the size of one of those cameras the paparazzi used to wield when they popped out of the shadows and snapped her photo. Her reprieve from the fame she'd never wanted was over.
Ham Farragut a.k.a. Hunter Green, was about to tell Bailey that she, Jillian Foster, also had another name: Babycakes Malone.
Jillian should have known that nothing good could come out of her association with a reporter. So what if Bailey was irresistible? She should have resisted him. Because she hadn't, she'd have to pay — with her hard-won privacy.
She considered making a run for it, or at least ducking behind a potted plant, but Bailey's hand was at her back, guiding her inevitably forward toward her fate.
"Jillian, this is Prof…I mean Hunter Green," Bailey said when they reached the table. "Hunter, this is Jillian Foster."
Jillian held her breath and waited for Ham to rat her out.
Instead he looked at her as though he'd never seen her before in his life, inclined his head slightly and focused on Bailey.
"Were you serious when you said you'd include me in the magazine article if I led you to Babycakes?" he asked. Jillian, her knees weak with relief, sank into a chair. "Maybe mention the injustice of a star like me ending up as a drama professor in a small town like this?"
"Sure," Bailey said with a shrug. "Why not?"
"That's why I called and asked you to meet for lunch," Ham said. "After our talk, I got to thinking about where on campus I'd seen Babycakes. It was in front of the Sugar Maple Dormitory so I went over there with one of her old publicity photos and passed it around."
He took out a glossy eight-by-ten of Babycakes and himself. Ham's professionally whitened teeth had an unearthly glow and his right side, which he insisted was more handsome than the left, was facing the camera. Babycakes's long blond hair was in braids and she looked very young.
"Oh, come on, Ham. Do you really think anyone would recognize Babycakes from a 12-year-old photo?" Jillian asked. After all, he hadn't.
"What did you say?" Ham stared, seeming to see her for the first time. "Nobody's called me Ham since that show ended."
Oops, Jillian thought. "Uh, I must've read the nickname in a fan magazine," she hedged.
"I did have a lot of fans, didn't I?" He grinned at the memory. "Anyway, as I was saying, I showed the picture around. And a couple of girls recognized Babycakes right off."
Jillian didn't dare speak in case Ham had the girls stashed at a back table ready to point her out.
"Did they tell you where to find her?" Bailey asked.
"Yes, they did. They even gave me the name she's using." He paused, undoubtedly for dramatic effect. "Babycakes is a student at Hemlock State using the assumed name of Candy Sweetwater."
Bailey waited until they reached the restaurant parking lot before he swung Jillian into his arms and kissed her on the mouth with more heat than the midday sun could generate.
"Was that because you have a lead on Babycakes?" Jillian asked when they drew apart. Her voice was breathy but her eyes were wary.
"That was because I couldn't help myself." He'd told himself he wasn't going to let her distract him from his job. But the memory of their night together kept doing it. "I should warn you that, after we check out this lead, I probably won't be able to help myself again."
He thought she was going to set him straight, maybe tell him last night hadn't meant as much to her as it obviously had to him, but she smiled and grabbed his hand.
"In that case," she said, leading him to the car, "don't we have a lead to check out?"
Fifteen minutes later, a big-boned blond who stood at least six feet tall answered the door at Candy Sweetwater's dormitory suite. Her eyes were green but that was as far as her resemblance to Babycakes went.
"Yeah?" Her voice was low, gruff, and a little scary.
"We're looking for Miss Sweetwater," Bailey said.
"You've found her."
He tried not to show his surprise. Babycakes hadn't seemed as though she had the genes to grow into an amazon. "You're Candy Sweetwater?"
"Heck, no. I'm Bertha Sweetwater. Candy's my big sister. She's inside. Who are you?"
"This is Jillian Foster," Bailey said, "and I'm Bailey Donahue from Insightful Magazine. We want to ask Candy about Babycakes Malone."
"Then you've come to the right place," Bertha said, swinging the door open wide to grant them entrance.
They walked into a surreal scene. The walls were plastered with posters of Babycakes. Posing with her TV family. Wearing sequins and belting out a Broadway tune. Tap-dancing in a film version of Annie in which Annie was a long-haired blonde.
"Candy has a thing for Babycakes," Bertha said, then bellowed her sister's name. A pretty green-eyed girl with waist-length blond hair and a camera-ready smile walked into the room. "Did somebody say Babycakes? She's my favorite subject."
Bailey could only gape. She looked exactly like the girl in Hamilton Farragut's poster, only larger.
"Wow," Bailey said and introduced himself as a magazine reporter who wanted to tell the nation why Babycakes had disappeared and what she was doing now. "You are Babycakes, right?"
"Yes," the girl said, smiling prettily, "I most certainly am Babycakes."
Jillian sat next to Bailey on the pink-and-blue-plaid sofa in Candy Sweetwater's dormitory suite, listening to the impostor regale them with tales of a childhood she'd never lived.
"Golly gee, I loved being America's pint-size sweetheart," Candy said, using not only Babycakes's trademark expression but the label the New York Times had pinned on the child star. "I had everything my little heart desired."
Yeah, right, Jillian thought. How about privacy? How about innocence?
"My favorite part of being famous was the TV show," Candy continued. "I loooooved playing a child genius. It was the coolest thing when I'd tell my TV mom and TV dad how to solve their problems and they'd turn to the camera and say, 'Babycakes knows best.'"
Yeah, Jillian thought sarcastically, spending 10 hours a day, six days a week on the set of a TV show when your friends were at home playing with Barbie dolls had been a blast.
"If you loved it so much, why did you disappear?" Bailey leaned slightly forward, all his attention focused on Candy. He was doing the intensity thing again. He hadn't asked the question of Jillian, but she was tempted to answer it anyway.
Candy's cheery expression wavered. "The adults made me do it," she finally said.
"Why?" Bailey persisted.
"I was so young that it's a little fuzzy." Candy looked at her sister Bertha, who up to this point had been leaning silently against a nearby wall. "Do you remember why, Bertha?"
"Mom and Dad were jealous of her," Bertha chimed in, clearly enjoying herself. "The rotten part was that I'd just been discovered, too. When they took Candy away from it all, they took me with her." She looked pointedly at Bailey. "Shouldn't you have a tape recorder or a notebook so you can get all this?"
And write a story consisting of a pack of wild lies? If the truth came out, Bailey would be ridiculed. His career would be over. Bailey started to speak, but Jillian interrupted.
"I have a request for Candy. We all know Babycakes was discovered because she could sing. Why don't you sing a couple lines of the TV theme song. What was the name of it? Ah, yes. 'My Brain Is Bigger than Your Brain.'"
The girl's face whitened. She sniffled, dabbed at her nose, and faked a cough. "I wouldn't sound so good right now. I have a terrible cold."
"Then dance. Babycakes could really boogie."
Candy made up a story about injuring her ankle getting out of bed so Jillian kept the questions coming. Who was your costar in Babycakes in Paris? Who was the director of Babycakes Be Mine?
Five minutes later, the girl threw up her hands, "Okay! I admit it! I'm not Babycakes! Just stop asking me so many questions!"
She was being paranoid, Jillian told herself later that night as she sat down next to Bailey on her moonlit porch swing.
Exposing Candy Sweetwater as an impostor hadn't necessarily been a bad move. It didn't mean that Bailey would discover Jillian was Babycakes. His leads had dried up, making it unlikely that he'd resume the search at all.
"So I guess this means you're giving up the hunt for Babycakes," she said.
His left arm was slung over the back of the swing, his fingers playing with her hair and creating delicious sensations up and down her body. Whoever claimed hair was dead must never have had Bailey's fingers tangled in theirs.
"Not necessarily," he said, then frowned down at Xena, who was sitting between them with her tiny head resting on his thigh as she gazed up at him with adoring eyes. "Do you think your dog's coming between us on purpose?"
Jillian ignored both his comment and the besotted toy poodle. "What do you mean 'not necessarily'?"
"Professor Farragut called me on my cell phone a little while ago. He says he remembered that Babycakes's mother is from Oak Glen, a little town about an hour's drive west of here. I was thinking of visiting there tomorrow."
"No!"
"No?" Grooves appeared in Bailey's forehead. "Why not?"
Because if Bailey stumbled across the wrong people, they'd tell him Babycakes's mother's maiden name was Foster and that she was living in Harrisburg with Babycakes's father. They might even provide an address that would eventually lead Bailey back to Jillian.
"Because I don't understand why you can't leave Babycakes alone," she said, trying to sound calm.
He took the hand he'd been running through her hair and rubbed his forehead with it. "We've already talked about this. Because the public has a right to know."
"The public has a right to know about a hypocritical president. Or a dangerous criminal. Or a dishonest company. Why do they have a right to know about a TV star who doesn't want to be found?"
He tipped his head. "Where is this coming from? I thought you wanted me to find Babycakes. Isn't that why you're helping me?"
"It's been bothering me, that's all." She sighed. "I don't understand how you can write stories about people who don't want to be written about."
"Because if I don't write the story, I'll lose my job," he said bluntly. "All I've ever written is hard news. If I don't prove to the new management that I can write something featurey, they'll fire me."
Jillian closed her eyes and rubbed them while she thought about this latest development. No wonder he was so gung-ho about finding Babycakes. She opened her eyes, blinked a few times and dabbed at her right eye.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" she asked Bailey, who was wearing a strange expression.
She felt something on her finger and looked down to see a tinted brown contact lens. Which meant Bailey was looking into one of her Babycakes-green eyes.
As Bailey gazed into Jillian's mismatched eyes, everything about the past few days fell into place.
Bailey's initial impression that Jillian's eyes were green. Her eagerness to "help" him. The hairdresser's comment about her naturally straight hair. The way she'd called Farragut Ham and the professor's offhand remark that Babycakes was older than her stage manager had claimed. Which meant the former child star could very well be 23, Jillian's age.
"You're Babycakes Malone," he said.
He expected her to lie the way she'd lied about everything else, but she gave a sigh of resignation and popped out the other brown contact. Then she leveled him with her famous green-eyed stare. "I was Babycakes. Now I'm Jillian Foster, small-town physical-education teacher."
Bailey shook his head, trying to make the impossible compute. His instincts had never failed him before, but he'd been duped. How had that happened?
It happened because you've never before felt about a woman the way you feel about Jillian. He shoved the thought aside. Now wasn't the time for self-examination. Not when he had a story to report.
"I don't understand," he said, trying to think of her as Babycakes and not the woman who'd made him forget basic reporting techniques. He asked the question her fans had been puzzling over for 12 years. "Why did you leave your career behind like that?"
Jillian pushed off the porch with one foot, setting the swing in motion. Xena yelped and leaped onto Bailey's lap, where she curled up before giving him a loving look. Jillian didn't look at him at all.
"Because I hated it," Jillian said. "I couldn't go to the bathroom without the press reporting it."
"You're exaggerating," Bailey said.
She turned to him, and he searched her beautiful moonlit face for a resemblance to the child star. He saw it in the delicacy of her features, the heart shape of her face.
"Once I was really tired and a movie director kept making me do a scene over and over. So I stuck out my tongue. The photo appeared in newspapers everywhere with the caption Brattycakes."
"Most stars consider that the price of fame," Bailey said.
"I didn't want to be famous," she said. "I wanted a childhood. Instead I wound up as a kid who could relate to Shirley Temple Black's story that she stopped believing in Santa Claus at six when Santa asked for her autograph."
"So that's why you disappeared?"
"That's the gist of it. Mom and Dad saw how miserable I was and knew they had to do something. They thought the press would keep hounding me if we stayed in the States so we moved to France. We didn't come back until I'd grown up."
Bailey shut off the part of his brain that empathized with her and focused on what was important: the story. He got up, earning him a whimper of protest from Xena. "Wait here while I go next door and get my tape recorder."
She shook her lovely head. "Oh, no. I'm not talking to you on the record."
"Too late." Bailey ignored the pain that radiated through him at the anguished look on her face. "You already did."
"You can't be serious," Jillian said, her throat so clogged with panic it was difficult to get the words out. "You can't write what I said in an article."
"Why not? It's the truth, isn't it?"
"Yes, but I only told you all that so you'd understand why I don't want publicity. I told you so you'd decide not to write a story. I don't want to be Babycakes again."
"Writing stories is what I do," Bailey said. "I'm a reporter."
She'd known his profession all along, but her heart had told her he was so much more than a member of the hated press. She'd thought he was a man she could trust. A man she could respect. A man she could love.
"But writing about me would be…" she searched for a word "…unethical."
"Writing about a public figure isn't unethical," he said, and she saw a flash of something in his eyes that looked like pain. "But I'll tell you what was unethical. Making love to me to throw me off the track of the story."
"That's not why I made love to you," Jillian protested.
He looked dubious. "So you weren't trying to sidetrack me?"
"Initially, yes, but —"
He didn't let her finish. "You're the one who was dishonest. You knew I was a reporter from the very beginning. You were the one who was living a lie, and you were willing to go to bed with me to protect it."
"That's really what you think?"
He nodded once and she felt as though he'd struck a blow to her heart. "And you're going to go ahead and expose me as Babycakes?" she asked.
"It's called reporting the news," Bailey said.
She stared at him, hardly believing the mess she'd gotten herself into. She should have figured out that every moment she spent with him increased the chance he'd discover she was Babycakes. She should have summoned the will to stay away from him.
"I think you'd better leave now," she said at the same time Xena leaped from the porch swing and tried to crawl up his leg.
She picked up the poodle, ignoring both the dog's protests and the tears filling her eyes. "He's not worth it," she whispered to the dog, but a part of her didn't believe it.
His eyes met hers for a brief, intense moment, then he turned and walked away.
She didn't see him again until early the next morning when she watched from her window as he took his packed bags to his car and drove away. Again, the tears fell. Xena, who was perched on the window sill, gave a sad yap.
"You're not helping matters," she told the dog. "Mooning at him every time you see him as if he were Lassie or something."
She went to her bedroom and threw clothes in suitcases. If she was going to be gone from Hemlock before his story hit the newsstands, she had to start packing. Xena came into the room, her tiny body dragging, her eyes miserable.
"Don't look at me like that," she told the dog. "You heard what he said about believing I had an ulterior motive for sleeping with him." She shook her head. "Is he really so blind he can't see that I love him?"
She froze. She'd made love to Bailey because she loved him. And then sent him away because she was too selfish to understand he'd lose his job if he didn't write about her.
"Oh, my gosh, Xena. Do you think he'll ever forgive me?"
Bailey slouched in the chair in front of his computer, which was in the brightest, most airy room of his house. Usually, the setting with its view of tall trees and blue sky inspired him. Not today.
He'd interviewed a slew of people who'd once known Babycakes Malone, talked to her former business manager and tracked down her parents. But in two hours of sitting at his computer, all he'd managed to write was a title.
He heard a scratch at the window, but didn't bother to turn. It was probably that pesky squirrel trying to figure out how to get to the bird feeder mounted on his window. Bailey had taken to chasing it away by emitting a mighty roar as he rushed the window, but he didn't have the energy for roaring today.
He needed to figure out why he had writer's block. But he already knew, had known since he'd kissed Jillian for the first time. "It's because," he said aloud, "I've finally found something more important than reporting the news."
Suddenly energized, he sat forward, typed three words onto the screen and read them over. They were the right words just as Jillian was the right woman for him. What if she was telling the truth? What if she'd had another reason for making love to him?
He got up, about to head for his car and Hemlock to find out, when he heard the noise at his window again, louder this time.
He turned and saw the outline of a Peeping Tom. He looked closer and his heart swelled. Make that a Peeping Tina. The woman at his window was Jillian Foster, a.k.a. Babycakes Malone.
"Hi," Jillian said, waving with false gaiety. She tried to read Bailey's expression as he moved across the room and yanked open the window but couldn't. "Your aunt came home and gave me your address. I rang your doorbell but you didn't answer."
"The doorbell's out of order." He leaned forward so his upper body hung outside the screenless window. "Jillian, I wanted to —"
She reached up and put two fingers against his mouth. "Don't say anything. Just listen. I should have told you to go ahead and write the story. That's why I'm here. To say I'll cooperate in any way I can."
He captured her hand with his and drew it away from his mouth. "But you hate publicity. You'd do anything to keep people from finding out you used to be Babycakes."
She wondered why it had taken her so long to realize this. "Anything but cause the man I love to lose his job."
"You love me?" he asked.
She nodded. "That's why I made love to you. Not because I wanted to keep you from finding out who I was."
His face split into a grin. "I hope love is patient, then, because that's what I need you to be when I'm out of work and looking for a job."
"You're quitting your job at Insightful?" Jillian's heart swelled.
"I'm not cut out to write feature stories," Bailey said. "Besides, the editors won't like it when I tell them love is more important than the news."
Then he was leaning even farther out the window and she was standing on tiptoe, reaching for him. Their lips met, and the world turned upside down — but it was just Bailey, tumbling out the window.
"I fell for you a long time ago, Babycakes," he told her when he got his breath back and then she was on the grass with him, laughing and kissing him.
A long time later, Jillian finally read the three words Bailey had typed on his computer screen after the title, "What Ever Happened to Babycakes?"
I'll never tell.
The End