Free Horizons by Catherine Hart

camper, Frazer. It will be like a buffet for you, where you can pick and choose what you like best.”
    “Hey! I resent that remark!” Gavin told her. “I have a fiancée at home, an d a couple of other good-lookin’ women in the wings, hoping I’ll change my mind.”
    Alita raised an eyebrow at him. “So? What does that prove?”
    “You are a real bitch, aren’t you?”
    “Hey! Hey! Not in front of the baby!” Blair cut in.
    “Me not baby! Me a big girl!” the toddler refuted on a sleepy whine.
    Blair struggled to her feet and held her hand out to the child. “Well, big girl, it’s time for us to go potty.”
    “No.” The girl’s chin jutted out willfully. “Mommy take me.”
    “Uh … Mommy’s not here right now, pumpkin,” Blair said. “I’ll take you this time, okay?”
    “Take me, too, and we’ll all be happy!” Roberts declared loudly. “I’m gettin ’ desperate here, folks.”
    Everyone ignored him, including the child. “Want Mommy!” she insisted. Her face screwed up as she began to cry. “Want Mommy! Mommy!”
    Blair knelt and tugged the girl into her arms, hugging her. “I’m a Mommy,” she choked out past her own tears. “I have a little boy named Bobby. He’s in third grade. I have a daughter, too. Nancy is just a couple of years older than you. And I have another baby on the way, but I don’t know what its name will be yet. We have to wait to see if it’s a boy or girl. What’s your name, sweetie?”
    The child blurted something that sounded like “Cindy.”
    “Cindy? That’s a very pretty name.”
    The toddler shook her head, making her blond curls bob. “No. Sirdley,” she sniffled.
    “Shadley?” Kelly echoed with a frown.
    “No.” The littl e girl stamped her foot and repeated the strange sounding name again.
    “Maybe it’s Shirley,” Wynne suggested.
    The toddler pouted.
    “Guess not. What about Susie?” Zach guessed.
    Her tiny face puckered.
    The others joined in, taking turns.
    “Shelby?
    “Sally?”
    “Shelly?”
    The girl screeched, garbling her name yet again.
    “Damn! I can’t understand what she’s saying. It doesn’t even sound like English to me,” Gavin admitted in frustration.
    “That’s because you Yanks have distorted the language so badly,” Frazer told him. “She’s a little Aussie. Came across on the flight from Sydney yesterday with her folks.”
    “So, can you understand her?” Alita asked.
    “No,” he admitted ruefully. “Guess we’ll just have to dub her Sheila, which Down Under means a good-looking female, and have done with it.”
    Everyone grimaced, including the baby.
    “That would be like naming her Girl, or Lassie,” Zach objected. “Might just as well say, ‘Hey, Kid!’ Let’s call her Sydney.”
    The child seemed to brighten at that.
    “Is that your name, honey?” Kelly inquired gently. “Is it Sydney?”
    “No,” the child replied blandly.
    “But it’s a nice name, don’t you think?” Blair put in quickly. “Can we call you Sydney?”
    The girl smiled, showing off a row of gleaming new teeth. “Uh-huh,” she nodded.
    “Okay. Sydney it is.” Blair took the toddler’s hand in hers. “C’mon, Syd. Nature calls, and I can’t wait much longer to answer.”
    “Me, either!” Roberts bellowed. “Hey! Y ’ all deaf, or what?”
    Zach pinched the bridge of his nose with forefinger and thumb, trying in vain to ease the throbbing in his head. “That’s one minor problem solved. Only about six hundred and ninety major ones to go—including what to do with our big-mouthed, small-bladdered felon. ”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
     
     
    T he question of what to do about Jane was turning into a mini-debate.
    “If we’d known she wasn’t going to make it, we could have left her on the plane. It would have facilitated identification later,” Frazer said. “They’d have matched her seat position with the name on the roster.”
    “They’ll just have to figure it out from who is missing from