Chapter Twenty

It's the frozen tableau from hell, Kendall thought, trying to stifle her laughter before it turned hysterical. She viewed the scene almost as objectively as if she were having an out-of-body experience: Herself caught up in Zach's arms, the two of them apparently enjoying a good joke together, for all the world to see, while Greenlee, Ryan, and J.R. all stared at them with their respective jaws hanging open to varying degrees. Those jaws began to close only when Zach slowly lowered Kendall to the ground.

"Well, aren't you two cozy, Kendall." Greenlee spoke first, light sarcasm laced with curiosity dripping from her tongue. "Not that you two weren't pretty cozy yesterday, but that was more of a 'pull them apart before they strangle each with their bare hands' kind of coziness, if not a 'these two really shouldn't be together in the same room where I keep my sharpest carving knives' cozy. Is there something you forgot to tell me?"

"Get your filthy hands off Kendall, Slater," Ryan snarled more tersely before his wife had finished, while J.R. continued to stare, a smirk of supreme satisfaction across his face as he whistled.

"Why, Kendall, you little dickens. I wasn't as off base as you wanted me to think, was I?" J.R.'s tone was fond—and his eyes were dead cold.

Beside Kendall, Zach moved nary a muscle yet without even looking at him, she sensed him seamlessly reversing gears, from being at ease and sanguine, back to being guarded and aloof.

Little Miranda appeared absorbed in the proceedings, her reaction conveyed in the sign language of alternately clapping and waving hands.

There was only one safe place in this group. Ignoring them all but her niece, Kendall rushed to kneel before the stroller, which was hiding a good portion of Greenlee, like an acolyte making an offering to a diminutive goddess. "Oh, my sweet little Miranda," Kendall cooed, trying to focus her fractured awareness on the one person who didn't threaten to complete the fracturing process. "I am so glad to see you. Is Greenlee taking good care of you?"

Making happy gurgling noises, the baby reached out to touch her face. Lightly holding her niece's small fingers to her cheek, Kendall added softly, "I can see Greenlee is taking very good care of you, Miranda, but I'll bet you've missed me, haven't you? I've sure missed you."

"Well?" Greenlee demanded above both Miranda's and Kendall's heads. "Will somebody please tell me what's going on here? Zach? Let's start with you."

"Kendall missed the curb. I prevented the spill," Zach replied darkly.

"Oh, come on, Zach. Or maybe I should ask first, who are you and what have you done with the real Zach Slater, you know the one who would have given Kendall the big shove himself only yesterday?"

Kendall tore herself away from Miranda and looked up at Greenlee. "So Zach stopped me from crippling myself, Greenlee. Geez."

Greenlee persisted. "I wasn't born yesterday, Kendall. When Zach hauled me over the parking barrier yesterday it was pretty dashing, but it wasn't with panache like that!"

Aghast, Ryan interjected, "Greenlee, Slater did what?"

Hastily, his wife explained, "It's no big deal, Ryan, it was when I went to see Kendall and the gate was down, the reporters were massed, and Zach was all that stood between me and being trampled." She returned to Zach. "But the point is, Zach, there's a great big difference between acting like Tarzan to my Jane and acting like Tarzan to Kendall's Jane, and I still want to know what's going on."

"How about that Slater, Ryan? Told you. He's a fast worker," J.R. snickered.

"Wait a minute, J.R.," Ryan said. "Greenlee, I don't like the idea of Slater putting his hands on you under any circumstances. I will expect it not to happen again. Slater, what the hell are you even doing here? You're not welcome to keep coming around, and if you don't leave right now, I'll get on the phone to my lawyer and get a restraining order issued to keep you away from my wife and chil—I mean, Miranda."

"Isn't that going just a little too far, Ryan," Greenlee started and then seemed to think better of ending.

"Don't try to keep me away from Miranda, Lavery," Zach replied contemptuously. "You have no authority over her or me."

Ryan puffed out his chest. "I can keep you out of my home, and that's where Miranda is currently residing."

"Ryan, from what I saw, Miranda has as warm and loving and secure a home with you as she had with me," J.R. piped up earnestly. "I'll put in a good word for you."

With a final caress of Miranda's cheek, Kendall climbed to her feet. "Maybe Miranda 'residing' with you isn't such a good idea, then, Ryan," she said more calmly than she felt. Ryan's possessiveness toward Miranda echoed his wife's. Kendall not only had a bad feeling about that for her own sake, much less for Zach's, she had a bad feeling about J.R.'s presence on the scene. He must have gone straight from her place to the Laverys' this morning. Why? To Kendall's knowledge, J.R. had ignored Miranda since after she'd been revealed to be Bianca's daughter, not his, and his own child with his ex-wife Babe had proven to still be alive.

"And just what say do you have in any of this, J.R.?" Kendall asked, still attempting with almost superhuman effort to remain calm. "You've been out of the Miranda picture for quite awhile and I've never known you to socialize with Ryan and Greenlee. I don't get why you're even here, or who you're putting in a word with."

"Don't try to make J.R. the bad guy in this, Kendall. He was only—," Ryan began.

At the same time, J.R. said too sincerely, "Of course I still care about Miranda, she spent the first—"

Zach's deep voice boomed compellingly over both Ryan's and J.R.'s. "I'll take that question, Kendall." When everyone's startled gaze was refastened on him, he lowered his voice and continued, "If you'll answer mine first. Did Junior know where Miranda was?"

"I don't…oh, wait. He did. I mentioned it to him before—" Kendall paused uncomfortably.

"—before tossing him out of your house. Junior then flew here to report in to Ryan and Greenlee."

Kendall forgot the others were all avidly listening. "Report in? Zach, report what?"

"You're damn right I did, Kendall!" J.R. interrupted angrily. "I don't have anything to hide. I figured Ryan especially would be fascinated to know you were already shacking up with Slater."

"What?" Kendall and Greenlee both gasped.

Recovering quickly, Greenlee turned to Ryan. "Is that what you and J.R. were talking about while I was getting Miranda ready to go out for her walkums to the parkums? Good heavens, Ryan, that is a major newsflash! Why not share with me?"

"I planned to talk to you about it privately when we were alone together, Greenlee," Ryan said stiffly. "But it's out in the open now."

"Oh, for god's sake, Ryan—you don't really think it's true, do you?" Kendall protested. "Zach simply happened to be at my house this morning, and for some reason J.R. jumped to the completely wrong conclusion." She glared at J.R., who glared back.

"Well, what I think depends on what you tell me Zach was doing at your house, Kendall," Greenlee said, her brown eyes huge.

"Fuck," Kendall muttered under her breath, to which Greenlee immediately responded under her breath, "Please don't use the F-word in front of Miranda!"

Kendall's fists clenched. "Greenlee and Ryan, listen to me. Zach wasn't 'doing' anything at my house. We simply had tea together and—and talked about Ethan."

J.R. guffawed in disbelief. "Oh, you and Slater sure were mourning Ethan, Kendall. Why don't you describe to Greenlee exactly how the two of you were dressed for your little tea party? That's the best part—don't leave that out."

Zach had been standing slightly apart from the others. Now he stepped forward to face J.R. "As you know, I was wearing running clothes. I was heading for my daily run. Kendall was wearing a nightgown and robe. It was still early in the morning. Do yourself a favor, Junior. Do not persist with this fantasy."

"Your daily run? Oh, is that what you call it in front of Miranda?" J.R. grinned unabashedly. "Good one! So good I'll have to remember it for future use. I hate to tell you, though, Slater, it's not really my idea of a fantasy."

Zach slightly cocked his head in the way that was becoming familiar to Kendall. "You know what, Junior? We should be having none of this entire pointless and distorted debate in front of Miranda. Carry on without me. I've had my fill of it." He turned aside to the agog Greenlee. "Kendall and I came to visit our niece. I know you know how important that is now. I'd like you to let us take her for her walk. For the rest of the day, in fact."

"Out of the question!" Ryan roared. "Absolutely out of the question, Slater. And Kendall, you can't be agreeable to sharing time with Miranda with this—this—"

"This what?" Zach asked silkily.

Ryan swallowed noticeably, repeating, "It's just out of the question."

Nodding vigorously, Greenlee agreed, echoing, "Just like Ryan says, out of the question, Zach. Sorry, but that would disrupt the schedule I'm trying to establish for Miranda."

On the sidelines, Kendall glanced surreptitiously at Zach. She was feeling like nothing so much as a dog's chew toy gnawed into submission by a yard full of Chihuahuas. Zach, however, easily towered over them like an unyielding Rottweiler—an impressive stance infinitely preferable to be behind than opposite, she realized thankfully. Passively allowing Zach to speak for her with Ryan and Greenlee probably wasn't a very prudent move…but he had shut up J.R., at least temporarily, so his chances of prevailing with the Laverys, however he chose to do it, had to be greater than hers. Kendall decided not to intervene…yet.

In addition to which, Zach's request—more resembling a demand than a request—for himself and her to take Miranda for the day had thrown completely Kendall for a loop. Was Zach including her as part of the arrangement because the odds of his individually prying Miranda away from Greenlee were equal to zero, or was he fulfilling his pledge to honor Bianca's wishes, which certainly would have been to include Kendall if he succeeded—or both?

Zach was saying, "Did Kendall ask you to establish a schedule for Miranda, Greenlee?"

"No, of course she didn't. Kendall doesn't know a thing about babies and that's why I took Miranda home with me in the first place—because I do," Greenlee told him. "Miranda needs a stable, structured, environment right now and we can give her that. I can't just let you two go waltzing off with her any time you feel like it."

"Back off, Slater, just back off," Ryan put in. "Don't give my wife a hard time because Kendall was unprepared to take on the care of a baby."

Kendall h ad finally had enough of being talked about. "Nobody said I was giving up Miranda indefinitely, Ryan. Greenlee was only supposed to take her until I could get my place ready."

"I can vouch for it that Kendall's condo still isn't ready," J.R. said helpfully. "No play yard, no walker, no bouncer, no high chair, no safety gates, no toys or activity centers, loose stuff all over the place—Miranda's very mobile, you know, Kendall—I'm telling you, Greenlee, if Miranda were still mine, I wouldn't let her near Kendall's disaster area unless I was there to keep an eye on her."

"J.R., you son of a—!" Kendall bit off the rest. Miranda was staring up at her with her enormous, lushly dark-fringed brown eyes. Kendall knelt down to become eye-level with her in her stroller again. "Poor Miranda," she murmured. "You just want to go for a walk to the park and see all the buildings and cars and trees and people and dogs and go for a ride in the baby swing and get some ice cream, don't you? And these crazy grown-ups keep standing around fussing at each other and wasting your time, huh?"

"No way," Greenlee said portentously, "is Miranda touching any germ-ridden safety hazard swing or ingesting any high calorie, high saturated fat ice cream."

Rolling her eyes, Kendall looked up. "Oh, please, Greenlee, don't be ridiculous!"

"My wife is not being ridiculous. She is being responsible. And we are getting nowhere with this discussion," Ryan announced. "The bottom line is Miranda is staying with Greenlee and me for the time being, and Kendall, we will discuss new arrangements only when you can show it's in Miranda's best interests."

"Now you're being ridiculous, Ryan." Kendall tried to avoid sounding heated. "You don't have authority over me any more than you have it over Zach."

Ignoring her as if she hadn't spoken at all, Ryan went on like a potentate issuing royal proclamations. "As for you, Slater, remember what I said about the restraining order and Kendall, I suggest you reconsider associating with this man. Now, J.R., you were already leaving, so we'll say good-bye here. Kendall, you and Slater may as well go—wherever it was you were going after this. Greenlee and I are proceeding to the park with Miranda and you aren't welcome to join us at this time."

This time Kendall knew it was her own jaw that was hanging open. She was about to put it to more active use when Zach moved to her side. Before she could say anything, a light touch pressed against her arm through her jacket. When Kendall looked at him in surprise, he gave her an infinitesimal shake of his head.

To the Laverys, he said, "Then neither Kendall nor I will intrude any further. At this time."

The only thing preventing the whole encounter from being an entire fiasco was the arrival of a police cruiser whose driver pulled over to the curb behind J.R.'s still illegally parked car. Both Kendall and Greenlee recognized the policeman who emerged from the interior as Officer Lyman, who'd had a crush on Simone Torres, their attractive but unlucky-at-love colleague at Fusion. "Ladies," he greeted them warmly, "how's the make-up business? Nice 'Vette! Does it belong to either one of you?"

"It's my car, Officer," J.R. bragged. "Sweet, eh?"

Ignoring J.R., the policeman pulled out his ticket book, squatted behind J.R.'s car, and started writing. He then rose to his feet and strolled around to the left front of the car, peered through the windshield, and wrote something else down.

J.R. approached him irately. "Hey—what's the idea, Officer?"

Officer Lyman ripped the ticket from the pad and handed it to J.R. "Needed your plate number and VIN. This is known as a parking ticket, son. There's a tow truck coming along behind me, so you might want to move the wheels before they wind up wedged between a pair of rusted-out pickups down at the city impoundment lot."

"A parking ticket? Don't you know who I am?" J.R. demanded, regarding the ticket with disdain.

Officer Lyman snorted. "There's a Chandler memorial cell down at the station. We keep it dusted just in case—never know if you or the old man is staying or visiting when you come in. Keep mouthing off to me and we'll make it another stay. Remember to pay that ticket—the fine doubles after ten days."

Without another word, J.R. stalked to his car, got in, slammed the door behind him, started it, and peeled away from the curb with a squeal of the tires.

"He only got a lousy parking ticket? I was hoping he'd get towed," Kendall said in disappointment.

The police officer winked at her. "I'm not done making his day yet. Tell Simone I'll be dropping by Fusion soon to collect donations for the Pine Valley Police Benevolent Association. Now I'm off to up my speeding ticket quota for the month. Got one right here with that boy's name on it. Good day, ladies! And gentlemen."