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“Getting married? Since when?”
“Since Drew asked me last night. I’m sorry, but I forgot to call you.”
Yep. Never should have hired her. “Great. Now what am I supposed to do about Grace?”
“I’m sorry. But hey, why don’t you ask your next-door neighbor? I’m sure she would do it.”
“You mean Cute Stuck-Up Girl?”
“Her name is Carly. I know her personally, so I’ll vouch for her. We used to work together, and then her mother died and left her a business. I hardly see her anymore she’s so busy, but I did see her last week when I was taking Grace for a walk. She came out to get a package and waved hello.”
Levi glanced out the window, and there was Cute Stuck-Up Girl, bending down to pick up another UPS package. About the only times he’d seen her she was either signing for a package or hauling diapers into the house by the box. A couple weeks ago, she’d glanced in his direction. He’d smiled and nodded. She’d looked right through him. Hence the stuck-up part.
“You think she’d do it?” He glanced at his watch. If he didn’t want to miss his flight this morning and risk looking like a damned fool who couldn’t handle both work and being a father, he’d have to leave in fifteen minutes.
“Carly is supersweet. I’m sure she would help you out for the day.”
“And after that?”
“Again, I’m sorry. But I’m getting married, and you really don’t pay me enough anyway.”
“Might have said something sooner.”
He was going to have to get a handle on this sitter business. Next time hire someone highly qualified and serious about the job, not just someone between gigs. Levi hung up and glanced at his watch.
“Okay. Plan B.”
A few minutes later, Levi had carefully and skillfully moved a sound-asleep Grace from her crib to her car seat. When the girl slept, she meant it. Too bad she couldn’t mean it at two in the morning. He carried the car seat by the handle to Cute Stuck-Up Girl’s front door. Probably should start calling her Carly from now on.
“Wish me luck,” he said under his breath. “Just keep right on being adorable. And quiet.”
Grace continued to snooze. He rang the doorbell. Once. Twice.
Levi was about to abort mission and launch into plan C when the door flew open. Cute—uh, Carly—stood behind it, blond hair sticking up in four different directions. She wore yoga pants, a pink-and-white Minnie Mouse T-shirt that fell past her hips and fuzzy slippers in the shape of the Tasmanian Devil. He tried not to laugh.
“You’re not the UPS guy.”
“No. Sorry.” She was a lot prettier up close. Her eyes were amber, warm, with tiny flecks of green in them.
Those eyes took him in, doing fast work of assessing. When she fixated on the car seat, she did a double take. “What’s that?”
Huh. Not too promising. He forced a grin and a wink and tried to relax, because he had approximately twelve minutes left to work his magic. “A baby. Ever seen one before?”
“I know what a baby is.” Her eyes narrowed, and she pointed. “Is that your baby?”
He was beginning to resent the way no one believed he could be a father. “Yep. Mine.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Oh, I see. You must have heard about me, then. But all the advice is on my website. I’m thinking about adding Skype chats, but you’re a little early for that.”
“Excuse me?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here? You’d like some advice? Is she not sleeping through the night? Colic? Do you want to know the best diaper to use?”
He cleared his throat, because damned if he couldn’t use all of that and then some.
“No. I’m fine. Okay, let’s start over. I’m Levi Lambert, your next-door neighbor.” He stuck out his hand and shook hers.
“Carly Gilmore.”
“I’m in a bind this morning. My sitter, Annie, well, she ran off and got married yesterday and forgot to tell me about it. So...she’s not coming.”
“Annie. Yeah. That was not a wise choice.”
“You’re telling me. I’m new in town, and one of my friends recommended her.”
“Yes, she’s sweet but unreliable.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure how I can help you.”
A little worried that his cute neighbor might have been dropped on her head as a baby, and not encouraged by that possible fact, Levi took a deep breath. “Could you maybe just fill in for her today? I’m a pilot at Mcallister Charters, and I’m about to be late for a flight.”
“Me? You want me to watch your baby?”
“Don’t you hand out baby advice? So you have children, right?”
She had a ring on her finger, but that didn’t mean she had children.
At this, she went a little pale, then gave him a tight smile. “I...I know a lot about babies, yes, of course. I’m what you would call an expert.”
“Wow. This is my lucky day. If you could watch Grace just for a while, I’d be so grateful. I’ll try to come home early, too, right after my flight, if I can arrange it.”
“B-but where’s her mother?”
Levi always hated this part, and the pity that flashed across people’s faces. He didn’t want or deserve their pity. “She passed away.”
Cute Carly drew in a sharp breath, and sympathy flashed in her eyes right on cue. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. It’s just the two of us.”
She shifted from one leg to the other. “Well, okay. I can help you, since I’m a baby expert and all. Plus, I don’t want you to think that I’m not neighborly, because I am. But just today!”
Levi let his shoulders unkink and carried Grace’s car seat inside. He set it down on the hardwood floor of the entryway and handed her the diaper bag he’d packed.
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Here.” She handed him a scrap of paper and a pen. “Write down your phone number so I can reach you.”
He gave her his cell phone number and also the number for Mcallister Charters and Magnum Aviation. And the local hospital. And poison control. He had all of them memorized. He also got Carly’s phone number, then with one last kiss on Grace’s sweet forehead, he headed out the door.
Levi climbed in his truck, where he studied his neighbor’s house for a moment. Like his rental, it was a small tract home. Unlike his house, she had rows of colorful flowers lining the front yard and several others in pots hanging from the eaves. Fit right in with this older residential neighborhood. He made a mental note that he should probably buy some of them flowers at some point if he was going to stay in the rental. Grace should grow up in a home that reflected some kind of femininity. Not that she wouldn’t play sports with the boys if that was what she wanted, and of course he prayed that she did, because he could help her with that.
Should he go back and get his baby and rethink this whole thing? He tended to reconsider every one of his decisions thanks to Sandy’s parents. One false move on his part, one mistake, and he might give them ammunition. The last thing he wanted was a long, protracted legal battle he couldn’t afford.
But the warmth in Carly’s eyes when she’d heard about Grace’s mother told him she was compassionate. Kind. Maybe he’d assumed too much and far too easily, but he had a good sense of people, and it hadn’t failed him yet. No. This was good.
He started his truck and headed to the airport.
CHAPTER TWO (#u67794f6a-04ed-5b54-b705-d09e131f9b21)
FROM A SHORT DISTANCE, Carly Gilmore had definitely noticed her new neighbor. Once when she’d had the day from hell. But up close and personal, the way he’d been on her doorstep this morning, he was a blend of tall and rugged, with a bad-boy charm that scrambled with her brain. He had deep and dark blue eyes that promised the fun kind of trouble, sun-kissed dark blond hair and a cleft in his chin that made him ridiculously gorgeous. She was grateful for a small scar through his left eyebrow that at least kept him from being prettier than her.
She’d done a double take on the baby because, really? Some woman had tamed this dude and made him a father. Which proved, as one of her best friends, Zoey, believed, that miracles happened every day. They just didn’t happen for Carly.
But what kind of a father left his precious baby with a complete stranger?
Answer: one like her neighbor Levi Lambert, who had probably rarely heard the word no coming out of a woman’s mouth. He’d so easily trusted her on the whole baby-expert thing. An exaggeration on her part, of course, but she was trying. That counted for something. His timing couldn’t be better. She’d say that for him. Today, of all days, she could use his baby.
“You’re a good sleeper.” Carly carried the car seat and diaper bag into the kitchen.
The poor, motherless child.
Normally, hearing of such a sad situation, Carly would shed tears on a dime. But these days, she was all cried out. She bent down to get a better look at Grace. This must be the baby she’d seen Annie pushing last week in the newest Koolbaby stroller on the market. But until now she’d never had a good look at the baby. Her lashes were long and beautifully dark, and she had her father’s dark blonde hair. Did she also have his beautiful dark blue eyes?
“Your daddy is quite the looker,” Carly said quietly.
He had one of those rare and one hundred percent real Southern drawls that turned most women into limp noodles. Good thing Carly would not be one of them. She found the formula bottles he’d packed in the diaper bag and put them in the fridge. He owned some of the nicer baby bottles made by Just Like Mommy, the ones with the nipple that was supposed to most correctly resemble a human one. She’d given it a high rating last month on the blog and pretty much guessed at the efficacy. Maybe she’d ask Levi later, if she could ever bring herself to ask a man like him whether his baby liked the nipple. She shook her head. Nope, not going to ask him. She’d see how Grace liked it when she gave her a bottle later.
This TotLuv diaper bag was also a good choice, one she’d given a five-star rating to, leading her to wonder if someone had chosen these items based on her blog’s recommendations. It gave her a little dash of hope. Maybe, just maybe, her late mother’s dream wasn’t going to go down in flames with Carly at the helm.
A year ago, after Pearl had passed away, it seemed she would take her company with her. She’d built RockYourBaby.com from the ground up, a labor of love based on raising three children. Pearl had been the true baby expert. Her mother was the one who belonged at the helm of RockYourBaby.com, and Carly was merely the impostor.
Impostor or not, she now operated the company until they could sell it, because no one else wanted to run the company. Her father, who had retired from PG&E, had broken his hip and now lived in Maine with her oldest brother, Kirk, a civil engineer. The physical therapy bills were through the roof, Daddy wasn’t getting any better, and among the many reasons to sell the company, one was to help pay for his treatment. Her other brother, Allen, was a lawyer in Tempe, Arizona, and since Carly was the only one with double X chromosomes, her brothers left it to her to salvage the business and restore it to what it had been before their mother died so they could sell it for a tidy profit.
Carly’s laptop rang. “Shh.”
She picked Grace up by the car seat handle and carried the seat closer to her office—otherwise known as the kitchen table. She settled Grace on the floor near the entrance of the kitchen and flew to the laptop to stop the ringing before it woke her up.
“Hello? Carly?” Jill, her other best friend, had taken to Skyping Carly from locations on the outskirts of town. The reception wasn’t always the best.
Carly sat and turned to face the laptop camera. “I’m here.”
“What’s with your hair today?” Jill looked sideways through the screen.
Crap, was that what she looked like? And she’d answered the door to Mr. Hunk like this?
“I’ve had a rough morning.” Carly smoothed her hair down into place and reached for her hair clip.
She hadn’t even dressed. Last night she’d gone through the closet full of eBay fashion steals she’d accumulated over the years and set out her clothes for the next morning. She’d done that ritual every day for years. Her ribbed sweetheart-neck Urban Outfitters minidress paired with a cropped denim jacket and her Marc Jacobs Chelsea booties had been all ready for her this morning. But she’d taken one look at the supercute outfit and didn’t have the energy. What for, when she would be sitting in front of a laptop most of the day?
Jill’s face moved away from the screen and scanned her outdoor surroundings. “This could be the perfect location. It’s even got a little boat dock by the lake. Sure, it needs a little work, but the owner is motivated.”
A little work? Carly squinted. The boat dock seemed to be a wooden plank.
“Maybe you should keep looking.”
“I’m meeting with the owner later today. It couldn’t hurt. I hear they’re desperate.”
Sounded familiar.
Soon both of her best friends would be firmly entrenched in pursuing their lofty dreams. Jill with her long-held dream to restore an outdated inn, and Zoey as the owner and operator of Pimp Your Pet. They were both moving forward with their lives and dreams, while Carly was stuck. RockYourBaby.com was definitely not the best use of her fashion design degree.
She would never be able to move on to her own future if she didn’t sell and get out from under RockYourBaby.com. But they kept losing sponsors, the real bread and butter of her mom’s company. Carly feared she had a tiny authenticity problem. Namely, the entire RockYourBaby brand was now a bald-faced lie. She was at the helm of a company with a brand that was trusted and regarded for baby knowledge.
Ideally, she needed to create an image that would resonate with the RockYourBaby audience. Then they might be able to sell to a larger company. Carly had already decided she’d give most of her share of the money from the sale to Kirk, to help care for their father. Their dad, Jerry, needed almost constant care these days. Therapy and medications were not cheap, and health insurance helped with only a small part of it. The sooner she could get this company’s value up and sold, the quicker her father could get adequate care.
No pressure.
“I say you keep looking.”
Grace squirmed. She opened up wide blue eyes and blinked a couple of times. Uh-oh. The thing was awake now.
Jill’s face appeared on the monitor again. “And how are you doing? What did your mom’s accountant suggest?”
Carly didn’t want to talk about it. Patsy had suggested it was all a matter of perception and it occurred at every major firm when there was a change at the helm. RockYourBaby.com was simply no longer relevant.
Ouch.
Still, the suggestion was that though they’d lost some footing in the market, recovery was feasible. Her mother had created a solid brand. In other words, all was not lost. Yet.
Grace let out a piercing wail, and Carly stood and walked out of the camera’s view to unbuckle the baby from her seat. She picked her up carefully, like she was fine china, and carried her to the table slowly so neither one of them would fall.
“What was that?” Jill was saying. “Did you get a cat?”
“Sorry.” Carly propped Grace on her lap and resumed the Skype chat.
Jill stared, jaw dropped. “Um? Care to explain? What are you doing with a baby?”
“Oh, this is my neighbor’s baby. Grace. His sitter cancelled last minute, so he came over and begged me to watch her for a day. Can you believe it? He doesn’t even know me. Rookie dad.”
“What are you thinking, offering to babysit? Like you don’t have enough to do.”
“First, I didn’t offer. He asked. And I’ll be able to finish my blog post with some real honest research and not just the Watch-Me-Tinkle baby doll.”
“This is not your brightest idea. You should stick with the dolls.”
“That’s not real research. I need to own this baby-expert thing.”
“Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that baby is about to blow. She’s puckering up for a good, loud scream.”
Carly turned Grace so she could see her face. Sure enough, she had a stiff bottom lip and her tiny, angelic sleeping face had turned a frightening shade of mauve. She took one look at Carly and out came an earsplitting wail.
