Free My Best Friend's Baby by Lisa Plumley

Men of the Military" pinup calendar
hanging beside her refrigerator—Mr. April was dressed in a sailor's
hat and boots and not much else besides a smile—and all at once,
Chloe had the lie she needed.
    "He's in the marines," she blurted out.
    Nick's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "The
marines."
    "Sure. He was, um, called back to duty
suddenly."
    "I don't remember you dating any
marines."
    Aaack. He was right. Chloe crossed her
fingers behind her back and gave Nick her sweetest smile. "I didn't
tell you about him," she said, spinning a more elaborate story in
her imagination. Love lost to duty, a brave soldier called back
before his true love could tell him about their baby ... maybe it
was crazy, but she was committed now.
    "I just couldn't tell you," she said, adding
a sigh for effect. "Bruno was too special to be shared."
     
     
     
     

Chapter Five
     
    Bruno.
    The name haunted Nick night and day for the
next two months. Even his work was affected. Who could concentrate
with thoughts of Chloe's mystery marine buzzing around in his
head?
    He could, dammit . Scowling at the
printout in his hands, Nick tried to make sense of the scrawled
notes he'd made past midnight last night—he'd resorted to working
past dark most days, just to get something done—and finally gave up
in disgust. Something had to give. It just couldn't be his
work.
    And it couldn't be Chloe, either. She needed
him, now more than ever.
    Hell, what a mess. Nick threw the printout
onto his desk and swooshed his wheeled chair across his home office
to gaze out the window. As it was, he'd been dividing his time
between taking care of Chloe and working on a new version of his
growth accelerator—and giving short shrift to both. He'd dreamed
since he was a boy about making a name for himself by inventing
miraculous things. Without a proposal and prototype, without an
investor and licensing, his dream would be impossible to
achieve.
    And without Chloe, his achievements would be
pointless.
    He didn't buy her story about Bruno.
Something about it rang false, and Nick had operated on instinct
and educated guesses long enough to trust his gut. So far he hadn't
been able to find the mismatched element in her story, but he
would. The more important question was, why would she keep it from
him?
    He had a feeling the answer hovered just on
the edge of his memory, like a misremembered name on the tip of his
tongue. All he needed to jog it to the forefront was the right
stimulus... whatever that was.
    With a growl of frustration, Nick slapped
his hand onto the thick windowsill beside him, ready to whirl back
to his computer and try to get something done. Instead, a flash of
movement outside caught his eye and stilled his slide. A second
later, he realized what he'd seen.
    A bird bobbing past the window.
    Not flying, not soaring or swooping or
gliding. Bobbing.
    It could only be Shep, Chloe's winged
avenger. Where one of her animals were, she couldn't be far behind.
And where Chloe went, trouble followed. Nick decided to
investigate.
    Outside, he spotted her halfway down the
block, power walking through the shade of a feathery-leafed
mesquite tree. Her shimmery orange bicycle shorts, yellow T-shirt,
and floral baseball cap glowed bright as the early-summer Saguaro
Vista sun overhead. Chloe added more vibrancy to their small-town
block than all the surrounding Fifties-era red brick houses and
their water-thrifty desert landscaping put together. As he watched,
she waved to an elderly neighbor lady who was outside gathering her
newspaper, then crooked her elbows at her sides and picked up
speed.
    Just as he'd suspected, Shep rode on her
shoulder—which explained the bobbing he'd seen earlier, if not the
rest of what he saw now. Her beagle, Larry, secured by an
auto-winding leash attached at Chloe's waist, trotted along at her
side with his tongue lolling. Moe the cat slinked through the yards
bordering the sidewalk, safe prowling distance from the rest of the
menagerie but