скачать книгу бесплатно
“I haven’t exactly had time to send out engraved announcements.” The baby screamed. Dylan Van Zandt didn’t budge, just stood there stiff and unmoving.
Lana leaned the baseball bat against the door frame, tucked the little flashlight into her pocket, and held out her arms. “Let me have him.”
“What?”
“I said let me have him. He’s probably afraid you’re going to drop him.” She wiggled her fingers. “Come here, sweetheart.”
Still frowning, Dylan let her take the child. The infant was tiny, a newborn, light as a feather in her arms. Where is his mother? She wanted to ask but didn’t. Instead she cuddled him against her breast, one hand under his bottom, one hand gently patting his back. He didn’t stop crying. His legs were drawn stiffly up against his belly, his face screwed into a scowl that was a perfect match for his father’s.
Dylan Van Zandt stood aside and let her precede him into the apartment. And it was a residence, not unused office space as the real estate agent had led her to believe. The ceilings were high, with ornate plaster cornices. A small marble fireplace graced one wall. Light streamed onto the hardwood floor, dulled by years of neglect, from long windows that looked onto Kings Avenue. The room was empty except for half a dozen cardboard packing boxes piled in the middle.
“This way.” Dylan Van Zandt gestured toward another doorway. It led into the kitchen, Lana discovered. Green and white thirties-era linoleum covered the floor. Glass-fronted cupboards reached to the ceiling above a granite countertop. The refrigerator was so old it had a round compressor on the top, but it was humming away. The gas stove belonged in a museum. A brand-new microwave oven was on the counter, probably because the gas had been shut off up here years ago. She wondered if the water was also shut off. There was no way he could take care of a baby properly with no water and no heat or air-conditioning, although it was surprisingly cool in the big high-ceilinged rooms.
The kitchen was long and narrow. A small table and two chairs sat in one corner. An overstuffed recliner, a man’s chair, held pride of place by the window. Beside it an end table held a lamp, a combination radio and CD player and long metal tubes that looked as if they contained blueprints or architect’s drawings. The bathroom was directly ahead of her. She could see the corner of a claw-footed tub and a pedestal sink with a black leather shaving kit on the rim. The only baby items in view were a diaper bag and a glass bottle of formula with a screw-on nipple top like the ones they gave new mothers when they left the hospital. And a top-of-the-line infant carrier, draped with yellow and blue blankets.
“He doesn’t like you holding him any better than he does me,” Dylan said over his son’s continuing screams. He was standing behind her, and she couldn’t tell if she heard frustration or anger in his tone.
She turned. “He’s colicky. Does he cry like this often?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I…I haven’t been around him that much. He’s only been out of the hospital two weeks. He was a preemie. He weighed three and a half pounds when he was born.”
Lana took a closer look at the baby. “How old is he now?”
“Ten weeks.”
“He’s so tiny.” The sound of her voice penetrated the infant’s self-absorbed misery. He opened cornflower blue eyes and stared at her for a long moment while Lana held her breath. He was the most beautiful baby she’d ever seen. Perfect little ears, creamy skin, a button nose and silky hair the color of winter sunshine.
He didn’t look anything like the dark-haired, hawk-nosed man in front of her. Maybe he had kidnapped the child, after all.
“What do you do for colic?” Dylan was asking her.
“What?”
“How do I stop him from crying?”
“You really don’t know anything about babies, do you?”
“No.” There was no smile, no self-effacing shrug to soften the denial.
What if he was a kidnapper, after all? Maybe he was in the middle of a nasty custody battle with the child’s mother. It happened. You read about it all the time. What had she gotten herself into? Lana looked at his hands. He was wearing a plain gold wedding band. He caught her looking at him. Followed the path of her gaze. Something of what she was thinking must have shown on her face.
“My mom’s been taking care of him. She fell and fractured her ankle yesterday putting up curtains in the nursery. She had to have surgery on it. She’s going to be laid up for at least six weeks.”
“Where’s the baby’s mother? Where’s your wife?” Lana asked, whispering to avoid upsetting the baby.
Dylan Van Zandt didn’t meet her eyes. He looked past her at something or someone she couldn’t see. His eyes were storm-cloud gray, she saw, bleak as the hill-country sky after a December rain. “She’s dead,” he said, not a trace of emotion evident in his words or his voice. “She died two months ago. Ten days after our son was born.”
CHAPTER TWO
HE SHOULDN’T HAVE blurted it out that way. Her eyes were as big as saucers. Her grip on Greg tightened perceptibly. For a moment he thought she was going to turn and run, taking his son with her. He saw the thought flash behind her green-gold eyes, then vanish as quickly as it came.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing you can say.” She had guts, he’d give her that. Climbing that dark stairway, confronting him with nothing but a baseball bat. He could have been some criminal. A kidnapper, a drug dealer—a wife killer.
“How did it happen?” she asked. The baby squirmed against her shoulder, as though trying to get closer. She laid her cheek against the top of his fuzzy head and swayed gently the way Dylan had seen his mother do. Greg quit squirming, and his cries trailed off to whimpers. When he didn’t answer right away she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be asking such a personal question.”
Dylan raked a hand through his hair. “It’s okay. It was a car accident. She was on her way to the hospital to visit Greg.” And to get away from me. Best leave that thought unspoken. Technically he’d been miles away when the accident occurred, but in a way he had killed Jessie, with his accusations and his lack of trust.
“How terrible.” The baby stiffened and began to howl again. “Poor little tyke.”
“Is he hungry? Would a bottle help?” He had no idea what it was the scrap of humanity he called his son wanted.
She shook her head, moved to the table and set Greg in his carrier. She took one little foot in each hand and stretched his legs out, then pushed them back against his body. She kept doing that, stretching and bending, and after a minute or so his son quit crying. He gave a hiccuping burp, answered with the same sound from his diapered end. A blissful look came over his pinched features. “Now you feel better, don’t you, little one.” She held out her hand, and Greg grabbed on to her finger as though he’d never let go. “Got rid of all that nasty gas. Yes, that’s better. I’ll bet you’re hungry, too, aren’t you, Greggy?” She looked at Dylan and almost smiled. “You did call him Greg, didn’t you?”
“Yes. He’s named for his uncle. My best friend. I…I have a bottle all ready to go.” Dylan rushed to the fridge, afraid if he hesitated Greg would start crying again. He put the small bottle of special formula in the microwave, remembering to take the nipple off. He hadn’t last night, and it had melted enough to clog the hole. Greg hadn’t been able to get anything to eat, and he’d worked himself into a frenzy before Dylan figured out what was wrong and got a new nipple. “It’ll be ready in a minute. He eats every two hours, around the clock. If he’s not screaming to beat the band, that is.”
“Such a little tummy,” Lana crooned, tickling his son there. Her hair, the color of cinnamon and nutmeg, brushed against her cheek, soft and shining. He liked the way she wore it smooth and simply cut. Her makeup was simple, too, lipstick and a little mascara, not much more. Her skin was peaches and cream, she had a nice body. He wouldn’t have been a man if he hadn’t noticed that right off. Her breasts pushed against the silky apple-green blouse she wore. Her waist was small, her hips rounded. Her voice softened, the crisp boarding-school accent she’d used before melting away into the softened vowels and dropped gs of a native Texan. “It has to be filled so you get big and strong. Then your daddy will start callin’ you Bubba and hopin’ for football scholarships to come wing-in’ your way.”
Dylan set his jaw. That’s exactly what he had fantasized when Jessie first told him she was pregnant, back when he had no doubts at all that Greg was his child. But no more. Now it was hard for him to say the words my son. He thrust the bottle at her. “Here’s his formula.”
“Don’t you want to feed him?”
“Do you want him to start crying again?”
If she was startled by the harshness in his voice, she didn’t show it. “You really are new at this, aren’t you?”
“I’ve never had anything to do with a baby this small. I’ve got two nieces and two nephews, but they were big strapping Bubba babies.” He tried for a smile and hoped he got it on straight.
“This one’s no different.” She took the bottle, then set it on the table. She picked Greg up and handed him over.
“Here, take him. Show me your stuff.”
“What?”
“Show me how you feed him.”
“I…” What the hell did she think she was doing? She had no business ordering him around like this. He was about to tell her so when he thought better of it. Greg was his sole responsibility, at least until his mom was up and around again. He set his jaw and did as she demanded, feeling big and clumsy and self-conscious. Greg stiffened as soon as Dylan touched him. His eyes snapped shut, and his face puckered into a scowl. “He’s going to start crying again.”
Lana sighed. “Here, let me show you. Like this. Loosen up.” She touched his arm lightly. He felt the warmth of her fingers through the sleeve of his shirt, felt the connection all the way to the marrow of his bones.
“I’ll drop him.” She didn’t seem to be affected by the contact.
“No, you won’t. Just pretend he’s a football and you’re a running back.”
Automatically he shifted Greg lower into the crook of his arm, curled his hand around his bottom, cradled his head. Lana laughed, a bright melodious sound that warmed his soul the way her touch had warmed his skin. Jessie had never laughed like that, at least not for a long, long time. “That’s better. I was right. You were a running back, weren’t you?”
He grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “A real hotshot on my high school team, but never better than second string in college.”
Greg started sucking on his fist. “He’s hungry. What football metaphor can you come up with to help me out there?”
“Don’t try and get the whole ten yards in one carry.” She handed him the bottle.
“What do you mean by that?”
She smiled again. “Don’t let him drink too fast. And bubble him when the bottle’s half empty, whether he wants to stop sucking or not.”
“You are good at this,” he said, relaxing a little. “How about giving me a few more lessons?” It was the depth of his need to get a handle on this baby-raising that prompted him to make such an outrageous request.
“I…”
“I’ll pay you.”
“Certainly not.”
He wished he’d kept his damned mouth shut. She was a businesswoman and a Lord. He hadn’t been in Austin long, but he knew the Lord name was a respected one. She was way, way out of his league, and here he was offering to pay her for parenting lessons. For being a goddamn nanny. “Sorry, that was out of line.”
“It’s not that.” She looked at Greg, and he saw her mouth tighten slightly. “I don’t have time. I’m late now for a party. My godmother’s grandson…it’s his first birthday. I can’t miss it. And then there’s my business….”
“Just the basics,” he said, determined that she not walk out of his life as quickly as she had barged into it. “Just until I can get my feet under me.”
“They have excellent parenting classes at Maitland Maternity. Or you could make arrangements to leave Greg at the day-care center there. They accept infants. My friend Beth Maitland—Beth Redstone, I should say—runs it. The care’s excellent.”
She was babbling. He’d only known her for a few minutes but he’d bet his last cent, and he didn’t have much more to bet, that it wasn’t like her. She was entranced by Greg, he could tell. She wanted to say yes. He decided not to try to charm her. Hell, he wasn’t that good with women anyway, never had been. He settled on the truth. “I can’t afford full-time day care. Every cent I have’s tied up in buying and renovating this building.”
“Oh. Then a nanny?” She bit her lip. “No. I suppose that would be even more expensive.”
“And what woman in her right mind would want to be here all day?”
“Then it’s certainly no place for a baby.”
She had a damned good point and he knew it, but he was between a big rock and a hard place. Not only did he have everything he owned tied up in this place, but he had a big chunk of his parents’ money in it, as well. “We’re staying here, Miz Lord. For the time being we have nowhere else to go. Look, I’m sorry I asked. You’ve been a big help. Greg and I will muddle through. Go back to what you were doing. And thanks again.” He motioned with his head for her to precede him out of the kitchen. Greg sensed his agitation and began to fuss, pushing the bottle out of his mouth with surprising force. Two seconds later he was crying again.
All the starch seemed to go out of Lana Lord. “See, you’re upsetting him because you’re upset. You win, Dylan Van Zandt. I’ll help you with Greg until you can get the hang of it and get this place fit to raise a baby in.”
SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN Michael and Garrett would have conniptions when she told them what she’d agreed to do for Dylan Van Zandt. Not even being in the middle of little Chase’s birthday party with a hundred people standing around watching them had made a difference. She should have kept her mouth shut until they were all four alone. Michael had backed her into a corner and refused to let her go until she’d told them all the details. When she described going up the staircase armed only with a baseball bat, she thought her brother the security expert was going to have a stroke.
Michael lectured her on the stupidity of that kind of stunt, and Garrett lectured her on her lack of even a modicum of common sense for a good ten minutes, until she had all she could take and told them both to knock it off. If she wanted to help Dylan Van Zandt with his son she would, no matter what her siblings thought of the idea.
Shelby, bless her heart, had been all for it. She thought it was time for Lana to meet someone new. Garrett had said very little after that, but the set look on his darkly tanned face left no doubt in his sister’s mind that if there was anything even slightly out of place in Dylan’s life, her brother would make the other man wish he’d never laid eyes on one of the Austin Lords.
Family. She loved her siblings dearly but she could make her own decisions and trust her own instincts. Lana leaned against the headrest and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. It was hot and humid, and thunder-clouds were building up over the hills west of town. If traffic didn’t start moving soon, her air-conditioning would give up the ghost. She should have had the car serviced weeks ago, but she’d been too busy.
And if she was busy then, she was going to be even busier in the future.
What had she agreed to? Parenting lessons? What did that entail? Baby-sitting? Probably. She could hardly leave Dylan’s son alone up there in the dust and dirt and mouse droppings. No, she’d have to keep him with her during the day. The thought made her heart skip a beat. A baby, one that she could care for as if it were her own.
She sobered at that. Greg wasn’t her baby. And she had better keep that foremost in her mind.
There was a parking space in front of Oh, Baby!, and since it was Sunday evening she took it. Mostly she parked around the corner on a little side street to leave room for customers’ cars. She sat still for a moment looking at her building, seeing it with different eyes. It was made of brick, old and mellowed. The windows were tall and well-proportioned on the second floor, square and functional on the third. The four stores on the ground floor all had bay windows and oval glass in the doors. She loved the small-town feel of the neighborhood. It looked like Main Street somewhere in the Midwest, not just a few blocks off the main drag in Austin, Texas.
When she’d first opened her store, there had been a little flower shop between the bakery and the vintage clothing store. Along with a New Age bookshop, they made up the other tenants, but the flower shop had gone out of business long since. She hadn’t thought about it in years. There had been a curving marble stairway leading nowhere that the owner had used to display floral arrangements and garden ornaments, she recalled. And once she’d glimpsed an old-fashioned metal-gated elevator through an open curtain behind the counter. She hadn’t made the connection then—that the space behind the grandiose wooden doors had once been the lobby of an apartment building—but now she did.
And soon it would be again.
That meant people moving into the neighborhood, stabilizing it even more. She liked the idea. Young couples ready to start their families, all of them buying furniture and strollers and bottle sets and rocking horses. She liked that very much.
Lana was smiling when she arrived at Dylan’s door at the top of the stairs. It was open a few inches, as though he was expecting her. She pushed it wider and called softly, in case Greg was asleep. No answer. She walked into the empty main room of the apartment, taking a moment to look around. An archway she hadn’t noticed on her first visit opened into a hallway that must lead to the bedrooms. She wondered if there were two or three.
It would be nice to be living here, so close to her work, without that long commute and the upkeep on her parents’ huge old house. But her parents had loved that house. They’d lived there all their married life. And if she moved in here, the apartment wouldn’t be occupied by a potential customer.
Lana walked to the kitchen doorway. “Hello,” she said softly.
Dylan didn’t answer because he was sleeping as soundly as the baby in the carrier beside him on the table. His elbows were propped on the blueprints of the building, his dark head resting on his hands, a pair of reading glasses dangling from his fingers. Lana hesitated, undecided whether to wake him or to leave as quietly as she’d come.
Greg stirred and sniffled and made adorable baby sounds, and Lana didn’t leave. A moment later Dylan opened his eyes, blinked just like his son and focused on her. “You came back,” he said.
“I told you I would.” She’d explained about the party, that she had to be there. But she wasn’t sure he’d believed her when she said she’d come back. “How did it go?” she asked. His beard had darkened, she noticed, and he looked dead tired, despite his nap.
“Okay. I fed him again. Didn’t try for a touchdown in one run. Got him to burp like you told me. He fell asleep, and I guess I did, too. Damn, I had a lot of work I wanted to get done.” He stood and began rolling up the blueprints.
“Are those the plans for the renovation you spoke of?” Lana asked. She felt awkward standing in the doorway. She felt awkward around him, period. She’d been with Jason Fairmont almost two years, and she hadn’t even thought of dating since they’d broken up. But Dylan Van Zandt was a very attractive man, the kind no sane woman could be indifferent to.
“Yes.” The frown between his dark brows smoothed out a little. “Would you like to see them?”
“Yes, I would.”
He unrolled the blueprints, slipping one edge under Greg’s carrier and holding the other flat with the palm of his hand. “There are four apartments on this floor, corresponding to the storefronts below us. They all have two bedrooms, three if you count the maid’s room, here.” He pointed to a small room at the very back of the apartment layout. “I’m planning to turn those into a bathroom and walk-in closet for the master suite.” He circled the area on the drawing with his finger. “Updating the kitchens and bathrooms will be the biggest expense. Have to bring the heating plant and the electrical circuits up to code, too. And the elevator to comply with the disability laws. That could cost me a pretty penny to renovate.”
“Do all the apartments have fireplaces? And those beautiful high ceilings?”
“Yes, ma’am. But the fireplaces will have gas logs. They make ones so real-looking you can hardly tell the difference.”
“What about the third floor?”
“I figure two big loft apartments. I’m hoping this area of the city will start attracting artsy-craftsy types. It’s close enough to the university that that’s not too big a stretch.”
“And all those Generation Xers who work downtown and at the Statehouse are going to start wanting places where they can spread out a bit, raise a family and still not have the commute they’d get if they moved to the suburbs.”
“Exactly what I told my dad when I talked him into putting a chunk of his retirement money into this place.” He looked at her and nodded approvingly. Lana felt herself color slightly. She hadn’t meant to speak her thoughts aloud. She felt disloyal again, the way she had earlier when she’d been thinking about her birth mother. Her parents had loved their big Tudor in its old established neighborhood with gated driveways and enormous live oaks dotting the lawn. She loved it, too. But it was so much house for a single young woman. And it was a forty-minute drive into the city—on a good day.
“I hope it works out for you.”
Greg began to snuffle into his fist.
