The Baby Came C.O.D.

He was glad someone was getting enjoyment out of this. “No, someone gave it to me.” Evan got out and slammed his door.

Without a trace of self-consciousness, Libby stuck with him like a shadow as he rounded the hood to the passenger side. “You mean, like a present?”

Where was this kid’s mother? Didn’t she know better than to let her little girl run around, harassing neighbors? “No, not exactly.”

He stared down at Rachel. Should he take her out of the car seat, or carry her into the house in the seat? He decided on the latter. He didn’t want drool on his expensive jacket.

Libby cocked her head, watching him think his problem through. “Whatcha gonna do with the baby?”

“I don’t know.” He bit off the answer. Evan didn’t like feeling as if he was lost, but he still hadn’t a clue what to do. There had to be someone he could call, a baby-sitting service that dealt in emergencies. Something. He had a meeting to go to, damn it. He didn’t have time to stay home and play surrogate father to someone else’s child.

Libby wiggled in front of him for a better view of the baby. Swallowing an oath he knew was inappropriate for Libby to hear, he placed both hands on her shoulders and firmly moved her out of his way.

She looked up at him, a sunny expression on her pale face. “Do you need help?”

What he needed right now was for Mary Poppins to come flying down out of the sky. “Yes, I need help.” He began working the tangled straps that he’d buckled so haphazardly before while Rachel waved her feet at him, kicking his wrist. “Lots of help. I—”

He looked up, determined to send Libby on her way, but she was already gone.

Well, at least that much had gone right in his life, he thought The last thing he needed was for Libby to chatter on endlessly in his ear as he struggled to deal with his very real problem.

He should have made a more forceful attempt to talk Alma into helping, he thought, annoyed with himself for giving in so quickly. After all, she was a woman and they had a built-in knack for this sort of thing.

Heaven knew, he didn’t.

The baby gurgled happily when he swung her out of the car. “Yeah, you can laugh. You don’t have your career riding on a meeting this afternoon. Who are you, anyway?”

Rachel answered him by blowing more bubbles.

Evan carried the car seat up to his front door, then tried to do a balancing act while he fished out the keys he’d automatically shoved into his pocket when he’d gotten out of the car.

Through with blowing bubbles, Rachel began to fuss again, trying to eat her foot. All in all, this was not turning out to be one of his better days.

Claire Walker had been staring at the same design on her computer screen for the past ten minutes. Today, apparently, her creative juices had decided to take a hike. No pun intended, she mused, since she was trying to work on a logo for a prominent firm that manufactured athletic equipment.

Nothing was going on in her brain except a mild, familiar form of panic. The kind that always overtook her when she came up empty.

Since she’d come into the small guest bedroom that doubled as her office over an hour ago, she’d gotten up every few minutes, procrastinating. She’d even dusted the shelves.

Dusted, for pity’s sake, something she absolutely abhorred and did only when the dust motes got large enough to put saddles on and ride. She was that desperate to get away from her work.

Nothing was materializing in her brain.

It was time, she decided, to take a temporary reprieve. A real one. Maybe what she needed was to take the morning off. The afternoon had to get better. The only way it would be worse was if she was suddenly possessed to clean out her refrigerator.

Her fingers flying for the first time that day, she pressed a combination of keys and shut her computer down. Things would look different when she opened it up again later, she promised herself.

The house reverberated as the front door was slammed shut. Hurricane Libby, she thought fondly.

“Mama, Mama, come quick!”

Claire smiled to herself. She was accustomed to Libby’s “come quick” calls. “Come quick” could mean anything from a call urging her to see a praying mantis, to watching a funny cartoon on television, to seeing a mother bird feeding her babies in the nest they’d discovered out front in their pine tree. Claire had learned very quickly that no matter what pitch the cry was delivered in, it wasn’t about anything earthshaking.

Life was very exciting for a four-going-on-five-year-old.

Claire stepped out into the hallway. “What is it this time, Lib?”

Libby, her blond curls bouncing around her head like so many yellow springs in motion, lost no time in finding her. “The man next door needs help.”

Claire’s brow furrowed. Well, this was definitely a different sort of “come quick” than she was anticipating. He was actually asking for her help? She and the very attractive, very mysterious man next door hadn’t even really exchanged any words. She’d said hello a few times, and he had just nodded in response. Not even a “hi.” If it weren’t for the fact that the mail carrier had delivered a letter to her house intended for him, she wouldn’t have even known his name.

Since he’d moved in, she’d seen him only a handful of times, usually on his way to his car early in the morning or returning to the house late in the evening. She never saw him do anything mundane, like mow his grass or take out his garbage. He had a gardener for the former, and as for the latter, Claire doubted that he ate or did very much living at home. Disposal of garbage might be a moot point—he probably didn’t have any.

Placing an anchoring hand on Libby’s shoulder, Claire held her in place. “What do you mean, ‘help’?”

Claire couldn’t visualize Mr. Quartermain asking for any, much less asking it of her or using Libby as a messenger. Libby didn’t lie, but something wasn’t right here.

Impatience hummed through the tiny body. “I asked him, and he said he needs help, lots of it.”

Maybe she was being hasty in dismissing Libby’s story. “Is anything wrong?”

Slight shoulders lifted and fell in an exaggerated shrug that seemed so natural for the young. “He stole a baby.”

Claire’s eyes were as huge as Libby’s had been. “He did what?”

All innocence, Libby recited, “I think he stole a baby. He said it wasn’t his and he needed help with it.” With her fingers wrapped firmly around her mother’s hand, Libby was already dragging Claire out of the house. “C’mon, Mama, you help better than anyone.”

“You’re prejudiced, but keep talking. I need the flattery.”

Libby liked it when Mama used big words when she talked to her. It meant she was almost all grown up, like Mama. “What’s that mean? Pre-joo-dish?”

“Something I’ll explain to you when we have more time.” Right now, she had to investigate Libby’s story. Claire had to admit, curiosity was getting the better of her. Otherwise, she would have never entertained the thought of just paying Evan Quartermain a “neighborly” visit. Not when he definitely wasn’t.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to go far to satisfy her curiosity. Evan was still trying to open the front door while wrestling with a car seat and an animated baby sitting in same.

“You’re right—he does have a baby.” Claire’s surprise could have been measured on the Richter scale. Maybe he was divorced, she thought. And his ex-wife unexpectedly had to leave town. That would explain the sudden appearance of the baby, as well as his distraught expression.

“I told you, Mama.” Now that she was certain her mother was coming, Libby released Claire’s hand and made a dash for Evan’s front door.

He had the kind of reflexes that had made his college fencing master proud, but Evan was still having trouble getting his key in the lock without dropping the baby.

“See?” Libby announced proudly, planting herself in front of Evan. “I brought help!”

Evan blew out a breath, then turned to put the baby down on the step, ready to warn Libby to keep her distance.

“I don’t—” His words vanished as he found himself looking into the very amused, very bemused eyes of the woman next door.

The chatterbox’s mother.

Recognition was a delayed reaction. She didn’t exactly look like a mother. Barefoot and in black shorts despite the autumn bite to the weather, the petite blonde looked more like the girl’s older sister than her mother. Didn’t mothers usually look a little worn, a little frayed around the edges? If anyone had a right to that look, she certainly did, given that she was Libby’s mother.

But this woman was fine, and the look in her eyes was sheer amusement At his expense. “Can I help you?” he asked coolly.

He’d all but snapped the words out at her. No doubt about it, the man was not a contender for the Mr. Congeniality award, baby or no baby in his arms. But Claire had to struggle to hold off an attack of the giggles. She doubted if she had ever seen anyone look more uncomfortable than he did. He was holding the baby practically at arm’s length, as if he feared any closer contact would make one of them self-destruct.

He didn’t like babies very much, she judged. For her part, Claire was a sucker for them, always had been. She loved the scent of them, the feel. She longed to take the baby in her arms, but refrained. No use getting worked up and mushy. After all, it wasn’t like it was her baby.

“No,” she finally answered, “but I think I can help you.”

He almost said Thank God out loud as he held out the car seat to her. But she took his keys instead and, with a minimum of fuss, unlocked the door for him.

With a sigh, he entered, still holding the car seat as if he expected the baby to begin throwing up with an eighteeninch projectile.

When he turned around, he narrowly avoided hitting Claire with the baby seat, but she managed to jump back in time. She nodded at the baby, seeing the resemblance. “I take it that’s your daughter?” She ignored Libby tugging urgently on her sweater, knowing a contradiction hovered on the girl’s lips.

Evan really didn’t feel like discussing his problem with this woman. He wasn’t even going to answer, then finally said, “Supposedly.”

“‘Supposedly’?” she echoed, stunned, taking another look at the fussing child. The baby certainly looked like him, right down to the wave in her hair. Just look at all that hair, she thought, longing to curl her fingers through it. She raised her eyes to Evan. This wasn’t making any sense. “Who’s the mother?”

Instead of answering, he turned his back on her, setting the baby seat down on the first available flat surface, the top of the two-tier bookcase.

“I don’t know.” As far as he knew, the child couldn’t be his. He’d always used precautions.

It took very little imagination on Claire’s part for her to see the baby seat plummeting from its perch. Was he crazy? She picked it up and thrust it back into his hands.

“If you’re not careful, she’ll fall off. And what do you mean, you don’t know?” How did he get this baby, then?

“Just what I said.” Evan stared at her, surprised, as his arms were suddenly filled with baby again. He saw where Libby got her pushiness from. “She was just left, on my doorstep, so to speak—actually, on my secretary’s desk at the office.”

He looked at his watch again. Damn it, time was growing short. Desperate—that was the only word to describe his mood—he decided to take a chance. “Look, are you any good with kids?”

Claire ran her hand along the waves and curls of her daughter’s hair, hair that was no mean feat to comb in the morning. “I haven’t broken the one I have.”

If that was a joke, he didn’t have time for humor. “Great. How would you like to earn some extra money?”

She frowned. Normally, she’d tell him what he could do with his money. Spend it on his “supposed” daughter. But this past month had been rough, and Claire was in no position to turn down work that fell into her lap. Any reasonable work, she amended for her own sake.

“Just what did you have in mind?”

Chapter Two

There was amusement in her eyes. He didn’t have the luxury of being able to take offense. Right now, he needed to prevail upon the good graces of a woman he hardly knew, even by sight.

“What I have in mind,” he began, rewording her question, “is someone to take care of, um…” He was drawing a blank.

Stunned, Evan searched his mind and realized that, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the baby’s name.

The woman’s amused expression was intensifying. Muttering under his breath, he shifted baby and seat over onto his hip and he dug into his pocket. Evan had taken the note he’d found pinned to the baby’s shirt with him to scrutinize later and perhaps somehow identify whoever was responsible for this dilemma he found himself in.

Pulling it out now, he looked down, scanning it. “Rachel.”

He looked up at Claire with a mixture of hope and expectation, waiting for her to agree.

Libby was at his side, peering at the note in his hand. Mama had taught her how to read a few words, but everything on that paper looked like scribbles to her.

“You have to write down your baby’s name? Don’t you know it?” Libby’s face puckered as she tried to puzzle out his behavior. “Everybody knows their baby’s name,” she stated with the confidence of the very young. “How come you have to write it down?” Compassion, learned at her mother’s knee, filled her expressive eyes as she continued looking up at him. “Doesn’t your remembery work?”

Claire affectionately passed her hand over the curls. “Memory,” she corrected.

“Memory,” Libby repeated, nodding in agreement. She didn’t mind being corrected. Mama had told her that was the way she learned, and she loved to learn.

He felt as if he was being ganged up on by a gang comprised of one and two-thirds women, if he counted Rachel in on it.

“My memory works just fine, and she’s not my baby,” Evan snapped. He didn’t know who needed more convincing of that, his neighbor, Libby or him.

Ingrained instincts had Claire’s hand tightening on Libby’s shoulder, moving the girl behind her in an age-old gesture of protectiveness.

“You don’t have to shout,” Claire admonished him, raising her own voice.

Why was she pushing her daughter behind her? Did the woman think he was going to strike her? Where the hell did she get that idea? He was just frustrated, but he wasn’t a monster.

“I am not shouting.” And then, because he was, Evan lowered his voice, struggling with exasperation. “I am not shouting,” he repeated. “It’s just been a very trying morning.”

She heard the weary note in his voice and saw the confusion in his eyes that he was trying to hide. Normally given to sympathy, Claire relented. He wasn’t as certain that he had no hand in fathering this baby as he was claiming, she thought.

“I can see that,” she said quietly.

Something within him reached out to the sympathy in her voice before he could think better of it. He didn’t need sympathy; he needed a baby-sitter.

“You know, I don’t even know your name,” he realized out loud.

“I’m not surprised.” After all, he’d made no attempt to talk to her the few times their paths had crossed. Quite the opposite, actually. Whenever she did see him, he’d hurried away, as if exchanging any sort of pleasantries was superfluous behavior.

“Mama’s name is Claire,” Libby announced. “She’s got another name, and it’s like mine. Walker. What’s your other name?” Libby had asked the man his name before, but he’d never told her. She thought now was a good time to find out, since they were talking about names.

Claire. It made him think of someone old-fashioned. Someone quiet. So much for a perfect match. “Quartermain,” he told Libby, but his eyes were on Claire. “Evan Quartermain.”

A smile, still amused, but softer somehow, he thought, graced her mouth.

“How do you do, Evan Quartermain?”

“Lousy,” he answered honestly. Apparently unable to find satisfaction by trying to eat her foot, Rachel began to fuss again. He really didn’t have time for this. Evan held out his burden toward Claire. “So, Claire, will you?”

He still hadn’t made the terms clear, and she knew the danger of agreements made without boundaries. “Will I what?”

Was she being obtuse on purpose? “Will you take care of the baby? Rachel,” he amended. Then, when she gave no answer, he said, “Her!” For emphasis, Evan thrust the baby seat even farther toward Claire.

Because she felt sorry for Rachel and because she was afraid of where Evan might decide to swing the seat next, Claire grabbed hold of the sides and took it from him.

“You’re going to make her sick,” she chided with a sternness she used on Libby only when the girl was particularly trying.

Both her tone and her expression softened as she looked down at the small, puckered face that was about to let out another lusty yell. She angled the seat so that Libby could get a good view, as well.

Claire ran the side of her finger along the silky, damp cheek. “It’s okay, honey, I’ve got you now. No more wild rides with Mr. Grump.”

Claire raised her eyes to his. The soft expression faded slowly, like sunlight descending into shadows. He couldn’t tell exactly what she thought of him and he really didn’t care—as long as she helped him out.

Something told Claire she was going to regret this, but she couldn’t bring herself to just turn her back on the baby. She knew others who could, but that wasn’t her way. Claire pressed her lips together, prepared to make the best of this.

“How long a time are we talking about? An hour? Two?”

He could lie to her, Evan supposed. But he hated lies. For one thing, the truth was difficult enough to keep track of. Lies were impossible, even little ones.

“For openers,” he began, watching her face, “the rest of the afternoon.”

Openers? And what exactly did that mean? She had a strange feeling that she didn’t want to know. What had started out as a neighborly response to a cry for help was quickly turning into something else. She was beginning to feel like an innocent insect that had flown unknowingly into a spider web.

But one look at Rachel’s face told her that struggling was useless. Still, she couldn’t let him know that. He seemed the type to take advantage.

Claire began to shake her head. “I don’t—”

He wouldn’t lie, but he was not above bribery in matters that counted. And he was desperate. Without thinking, he placed his hands on her arms in supplication, framing her body.

“Look, I was serious when I said I’d pay you. I will, really. Any amount, I just—” He was babbling like a fool, he upbraided himself. Evan took another deep breath, making a heartfelt appeal to, he hoped, her better instincts. “I’m just really in a bind.”

The idea of fatherhood really had him baffled, she thought. Claire glanced at Rachel before looking back at Evan. Just what was the story behind the gentleman and the baby? Rachel obviously looked as if she was his daughter. They had the same black hair, the same green eyes. Most babies’ eyes were blue when they were this young. To have a distinct color so early really pointed a finger at her parentage.

“I can see that.”

Relief began to surface in Evan, only to founder when she added, “And your sense of smell isn’t too keen, either.”

Eyebrows narrowed over a nose that sculptors only prayed they could duplicate. “Sense of smell?”

She didn’t think she was talking in code. He was so hopelessly out of his league right now, it was as if all his faculties had been anesthetized.

With a quick nod for his benefit, Claire indicated Rachel. “Your daughter’s ripe, Mr. Quartermain. I’d say she needed changing about fifteen minutes ago.” He should have attended to that immediately. That he didn’t just underscored how hopelessly inexperienced he was.

“Changing?” Evan looked around as if he expected a diaper to materialize out of thin air. Well, why the hell not? Rachel had. When his eyes returned to Claire’s face, they were tinged with disbelief. She couldn’t possibly mean that she thought he should do the changing. He hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin.

This was one dyed-in-the-wool bachelor, Claire thought Pity filled her—not for Evan, but for the baby.

“Come with me,” she instructed. Still carrying the baby seat, Claire walked to the front door. The lack of movement behind her told her that he wasn’t following. She looked over her shoulder at Evan expectantly. “Well?”

This was a dream, he thought, a bad dream. Any second, he was going to wake up and find that he’d just fallen asleep over the report he’d been reading. It certainly had been boring enough to put him out.

But he didn’t wake up. This was miserably real.

Ten small fingers were wrapping themselves around his hand like miniature tentacles of an octopus. Libby pulled at him. “Mama says to come.”

What was he, a dog?

Grudgingly, Evan followed in Claire’s wake, noting, purely on a disinterested level, that her wake was quite an attractive one.

“I think I still have a box of Libby’s old diapers,” Claire was saying to him as she walked into her own living room.

Still holding on to his hand, Libby pouted. “I don’t wear diapers, Mama.”

, She’d embarrassed her, Claire thought, and delicately retraced her verbal steps. “Not anymore, but you did when you were Rachel’s age. Everybody did, honey.” She glanced at Evan. “Even Mr. Quartermain.”

The thought of the tall, serious-looking man beside her wearing diapers had Libby releasing his hand to cover her mouth as giggles pealed out. She nearly fell on the floor, laughing.

Satisfied, Claire set the baby seat down on the coffee table. Wide and square, it looked as if it were built to support an elephant.

“Actually, I never used the ones I’m going to lend you,” she told Evan. “They’re cloth diapers someone gave me at my shower. Disposable ones were the only kind I had time for back then.” She grinned, looking at her daughter. “You were quite a handful when you were a baby.”

In Evan’s opinion, her “handful” had only intensified with time.

“Why don’t you watch your—Rachel,” Claire amended for the sake of argument, “while I go see if I can dig up the box in the garage?”

He had to get going. “But I—” he began futilely, addressing the words to her back.

Evan didn’t get an opportunity to finish his protest before she disappeared. A snowball in hell had more of a chance of remaining intact than he had of finishing a sentence around these two, he thought grudgingly. Not that the woman would listen to anything he had to say, even if he had managed to complete it. Claire Walker had a mind all her own, just as her daughter did.

He didn’t know which one he found more annoying.

Evan wrinkled his nose as the air seemed to shift. She’d been right about Rachel being ripe. Wow.

He looked down at the baby in complete awe. How could anything so…? Well, all right, he supposed she was cute if you liked babies, but how could anything that looked so cute smell so bad?

As if in response to the silent criticism, Rachel began to cry. Really cry.

She looked as if she was in pain, he thought. Panic and frustration tore at him in equal portions. Now what did he do?

He was aware of a tugging on his arm. Libby again.

“Want me to hold her?” she asked brightly. “I’m real good at holding things. Even the cat when she wriggles.” Libby was fully prepared to give him an immediate demonstration.

“No, I don’t want you holding her.” For all of Libby’s energy, she didn’t look all that much bigger than the baby did. It didn’t take much imagination on his part to envision her dropping Rachel.

And then the rest of her statement registered. “You have a cat?”

He looked around for telltale signs. A scratching post, or, in lieu of that, scratched-up furniture. Cats always made him sneeze violently, yet there wasn’t even a tickle. Maybe there really was something wrong with his nose, he thought.