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“Agnes Butler,” he said, the elderly woman’s features forming in his mind. “For lack of anything better to do, she spies on me.”
Twin brown eyebrows arched high on her forehead. “Spying? Sounds a little paranoid.”
Briefly, he recalled all the times he had strolled down that short hallway and spotted his neighbor, her eye glued to a partially opened door. Yeah, spying was the right word.
“You’re not paranoid,” he told her, “if they really are after you.”
A moment or two of silence passed. At last, she nodded and said, “Yes, well, the rest of the rules are pretty simple.”
“There’s more?” he asked.
She smiled. “No foul language—”
“Now, just a minute—” he said, trying to interrupt, but she was on a roll.
“No talking before coffee in the morning, and no loud TV or radio after eleven at night.”
Jeff stared at her. Was she finished? Or just pausing for breath? A few seconds ticked by, and he told himself that apparently, she’d reached the end of her demands. Well, fine. Now it was his turn.
He would tell her just what she could do with her rules. This was his house after all. Where did she get off telling him when he could or couldn’t watch his TV? And what about women? So he didn’t exactly have a parade of females trooping in and out of his apartment every day and night. If he wanted to, he wasn’t going to be stopped by her.
“Listen up, lady,” he started, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are...”
She froze, stiffening for a fight.
Miranda sniffled, shifting against a suddenly tense body.
Recognizing the signs of baby distress already, Jeff lowered his voice and spoke in a quiet, reasonable tone. “You can’t order me around. I’m the employer here, you know.”
“I can tell you what I expect,” Laura countered, her voice matching his. “And if you don’t like it, you can find someone else.”
He didn’t believe the threat. Even as she said it, her arms were tightening around the baby as if afraid that he would try to take Miranda from her forcibly.
No worries there.
But with the position he was in, he couldn’t afford to take the risk. If she left, he’d be right back where he started that morning. In deep trouble, begging Peggy for help.
All right, he could swallow a little bit of pride for the sake of his sanity. And he could even learn to deal with her ridiculous rules. Anything to keep her here and the baby quiet. After all, it wasn’t forever. Just for the summer. By the end of three months, he would either have found a suitable replacement guardian for the baby or, God help him, a permanent nanny to help him raise Hank Powell’s kid.
Abruptly, he said, “Fine. Agreed.”
“Thank you.” She accepted his defeat gracefully. “But as long as we’re discussing this situation, I should like to add one more rule to my list.”
He snorted disbelievingly. “What’s left?”
“I’d like to state clearly right from the first,” she said, “that I am not interested in you romantically, so I would appreciate it very much if you would keep your distance.”
Jeff laughed, the first good laugh he’d had all morning. Pointedly running his gaze over her slowly, he shook his head and said, “No problem.”
Once Jeff was out of the shower—and Laura had even resorted to turning on the TV so she wouldn’t have to listen to the spray of water and imagine it pummeling his naked, no doubt gorgeous body—they set things to rights.
The living room was a disaster.
With a fed and changed Miranda watching happily from her wicker basket, Laura and Jeff worked together to rebuild the place. So much for her rule about not being a housekeeper. As most of the clutter was cleared away, she noticed that the apartment wasn’t exactly homey. In fact, it was surprisingly impersonal.
A sprinkling of framed photos and commendations hung on the beige walls, but there were no paintings. Tweed fabric covered the couch and two chairs that sat on the tan wall-to-wall carpeting. There was an impressive stereo system and a large-screen TV on one wall, and a fireplace that looked as though it had never been used stood on the opposite wall. A two-person table sat at the end of the kitchen, and there were two bedrooms, one on either side of the single bathroom.
She tried not to think about having to share that bathroom with Jeff Ryan for the next three months. Luckily for her, she no longer noticed things like just how good-looking Jeff Ryan was. If she had been the slightest bit interested in finding a man, these next few months could have been torture.
Of course, she had thought she was past noticing the fresh, clean scent of a man’s aftershave, too.
“So,” he said, and snapped her attention to him. He folded up yet another brown paper grocery bag as he asked, “How come a kindergarten teacher didn’t already have a summer job nailed down?”
She stacked the last can of formula in what had been an empty cabinet, then closed the door and straightened up. “I did,” she admitted. “This one sounded like more fun.”
He snorted a laugh. “More fun than what?”
“Transferring card catalogs to computer in the local library.”
He whistled low and long. “You’re right, not fun.” He glanced at the baby a few feet away. “But this is?”
“Sure.”
“Lady, you’ve got a strange sense of fun.”
Peggy had told Laura that Jeff not only had no experience taking care of children, but also that he didn’t even like them.
She frowned at him. “Your sister has three kids. Don’t you remember how cute they were when they were little?”
He shrugged and bent down to neatly place the folded bags in the appropriate rack just inside the pantry door. “I remember they cried. A lot,” he said as he stood up again and closed the door. “They smelled bad and they couldn’t even talk to tell you why they cried all the time.”
“No wonder you never visit Peggy and her family.”
He looked at her. “Is that what she said?”
Was he offended? How could he be? “It’s true, isn’t it? You see them about once a year?”
“Yeah, it’s true.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned one hip against the blond wood countertop. “She tell you why?”
“She said you’re uncomfortable around kids.” Laura didn’t tell him the rest. Did he really need to know that his own sister, though she loved him, thought he was too self-involved to be concerned about family?
“That’s part of it,” he admitted, letting his gaze slide from Laura to the baby, now chewing contentedly on her own fist. “But mostly it’s because I can’t even talk to Peggy and her husband anymore.”
“Why not?” Laura asked. Peggy and Jim Cummings were two of the nicest people she’d ever known. Was the woman’s own brother too dense to see that?
He shook his head and smiled without humor. “Before they had those kids, Peggy and Jim and I had some good times. Skiing, sailing, took a few trips together.”
“And?” she prodded, interested now.
“And, the minute the first kid was born, it was all over.” He pushed away from the counter, walked across the utilitarian kitchen and stood, staring down at the baby in the basket. “They became parents in the worst possible sense. All they talked about was Thomas. His teeth. His upset stomach. His first steps. The first time he used a spoon by himself, you would have thought he was Einstein reincarnated.”
Laura smiled to herself as she stared at Jeff’s broad back. His sister was still like that Just a few weeks ago, Peggy had called to crow over Tina winning the second-grade spelling bee.
Like any other good parent would.
“But that’s perfectly natural,” Laura said, and walked to stand beside him. Looking down at Miranda, she smiled. “They’re proud of their children.”
“They’re boring,” he countered, swiveling his head to stare at her. “They used to have plans. Ambitions. Now those ambitions are all for the kids.”
An emotion she couldn’t quite identify flickered in his pale blue eyes briefly, then disappeared. “All parents want good things for their kids,” she said quietly.
“Sure,” he countered. “But do they have to stop being people themselves to be good parents?”
“Peggy and Jim are terrific people,” she argued, defending her friends.
He shook his head as he looked at her. Once again, Laura felt a flutter of awareness dance through her bloodstream. Deliberately, she squashed it.
“Is it so wrong to have ambitions and dreams for your kids?” she asked, determined to keep this conversation going, if only to keep her mind too busy to daydream.
He thought about her question for a long minute, then shrugged. “Not for Peggy and Jim,” he said, shifting his gaze back to the baby, now intently staring up at the two adults. “But that’s not me,” he continued. “I have plans for my career. Plans I’ve worked toward long and hard.”
“Everybody makes plans,” she said.
It was as if he hadn’t heard her.
“I’m going to be the youngest general in the corps,” he stated. Then he glanced at the wicker basket. “And I’m not going to let anything stop me.”
Three
A nightmare.
In less than twelve hours, his life had become a waking nightmare.
Jeff stumbled across the living room, stepped on a fallen pacifier and grunted as the dull yet stabbing pain lanced from his arch straight up his leg.
“Are you all right?” Laura asked, her voice high enough to carry over the baby’s wailing.
“Dandy,” he muttered, then flopped down beside her on the couch. Instantly, he lifted one hip and pulled a leaking baby bottle from under his butt. “How can one kid need so much stuff?” he grumbled to no one in particular as he slammed the plastic bottle down onto the coffee table.
Laura had only one lamp on, and in the dim light, he surveyed what had, only that morning, been his sanctuary.
Blankets, clean diapers, bottles, pacifiers, lotion, powder—there was enough junk in the already small room to satisfy a battalion of babies. So why wasn’t the only baby present happy?
“Why is she screaming like that?” he demanded.
“I think she’s teething,” Laura said, and hitched Miranda higher on her shoulder.
“Perfect,” he said. “How long does that last?”
In the soft light, Laura smirked at him. “According to my watch, she should be finished in another three and a half minutes.”
His eyebrows lifted. He knew sarcasm when he heard it, and if he wasn’t so damn tired, he might have taken a shot himself. As it was, his heart just wasn’t in it.
Laura whispered to the baby while stroking the infant’s back in long, gentle motions. Jeff watched her, at first for lack of anything else to do, but after a moment, because he couldn’t seem to look away.
And he also couldn’t figure out why. That nightgown of hers certainly wasn’t alluring. An oversized T-shirt emblazoned Life Is A Trip, Don’t Miss It hung to midthigh. Although, he thought, the surprisingly shapely legs revealed by that shirt were not bad at all. As he watched, she shifted slightly, tugging the hem down fruitlessly.
Her thick brown hair lay loose on her shoulders, and he had to admit that the casual style complemented her features far better than the scraped-back ponytail she’d worn earlier. Her high cheekbones were more sharply defined in the soft light. Light brown eyebrows arched high over eyes that looked as deep and mysterious as a moonless night. Her generous mouth was curved in a half smile even as the baby in her arms flailed tiny fists against her face. Laura merely caught one of those fists, opened it and kissed the small, chubby palm.
His jaw tightened, and something inside him twisted. A curl of desire trickled through him, and he deliberately squashed it. Shifting position on the sofa, he wished he had taken the time to grab his robe before leaving his room. Wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, Jeff felt suddenly, decidedly uncomfortable.
He was staring.
In the shadowy light, Laura saw his pale blue eyes darken as he watched her. Her gaze slid away, unfortunately dropping to his bare, muscular chest. Her heart beat faster, and her palms were damp. Breath after breath straggled into her lungs even as she told herself that she was probably just too warm in the overheated apartment.
All she needed was to turn the heater down.
This had nothing to do with how attractive he was. After all, she didn’t even notice things like that anymore.
Laura’s gaze flicked to his again, then quickly away. Her stomach fluttered and twitched. Why was he looking at her so strangely? She wasn’t exactly a supermodel, so what did he find so fascinating that he couldn’t stop watching her?
Miranda sucked in a gulp of air, coughed, choked, then cried again, pumping her little legs against Laura’s chest. Immediately Laura dismissed Jeff Ryan and the strange things he did to her stomach and concentrated on the baby.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” she soothed in a low, humming tone.
“No, it’s not,” Jeff said, his voice grumpy. “Is she ever going to shut up so I can get some sleep tonight?”
Laura frowned at him, furious at his impatience. Carefully, she shifted the baby to her lap and began to rock slowly. “Well, now that you’ve told her that she’s disturbing you, I’m sure she’ll settle right down,” Laura snapped. “After all, how can the throbbing pain of new, sharp teeth slicing through her gums compare with your being tired?”
He scowled at her and sat forward, leaning his forearms on his thighs. “You know—” he started to say.
“Yes, I do,” she cut him off neatly. “I know that you don’t give a—” she broke off, searched for a word, then continued “—hoot about this baby. All you care about is yourself.”
“Up until eleven this morning,” he reminded her, “that’s all I had to worry about.”
“Well, things’ve changed.”
“Tell me about it.” He waved one hand at her and the baby. “In less than twenty-four hours, I’ve inherited a baby and a snotty nanny.”
“Snotty?”
“Snotty,” he repeated.
Bouncing the baby a little faster on her knee, Laura’s rocking motion became a bit jerky. “You are the one who needed my help,” she told him stiffly, still smarting from the “snotty” remark.
“Help,” he clarified. “Not harassment.”
“Now I’m harassing you?”
