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But they did work.
Blue stopped in her tracks and sank onto the floor.
“Hands out,” Curt ordered.
Blue obediently stuck out her messy hands.
Using the towel he had slung over his shoulder, he tried to wipe her hands. Jessica could have told him that he’d need a damp cloth to get rid of all the stickiness, but she let him find that out for himself.
“I’s not a dog. I’s a girl,” Blue declared.
“No kidding,” Curt muttered.
The little girl tilted her head to look up at her father. “Would you like me more if I was a dog?”
Jessica’s heart just about broke there and then. Kneeling on the floor beside Blue, she quickly assured her, “Oh, honey, we like you just the way you are.”
Curt hunkered down beside them, still intent on cleaning up Blue’s sticky hands and apparently blithely unaware of his daughter’s emotional needs.
Jessica gave him a discreet poke in his side, right between the ribs. Her meaningful look finally spurred him into speaking.
“Yeah right. Just the way you are,” he told Blue. “Only cleaner. Now march back into that kitchen, young lady.”
Blue almost poked his eye out as she saluted him, leaving a smear of jam on her forehead and then on his. But she showed no signs of heading for the kitchen.
“Help me out here,” Curt growled in Jessica’s direction.
“I’m just here to observe,” she replied, wanting to tell him that Blue needed his unconditional love, not a love that was dependent on her being a spotlessly clean, good girl. But it wouldn’t be appropriate now, not with Blue present.
“To observe?” he repeated in disbelief. “How useless is that?”
“If you’d rather I went home…” Jessica turned as if to leave.
“Stay.”
“I’m not a dog, either,” she replied over her shoulder, one hand on the doorknob. “So don’t try ordering me around as if I were one.”
“Please stay.”
He wasn’t happy about having to ask politely, there was no mistaking that in the taut line of his jaw. But he did it.
She sighed. “Let’s get to work.”
“Let’s play,” Blue said.
“First you need cleaning up.” Curt gingerly picked his daughter up, as if she were a package he was hauling from one room to another. He didn’t prop her against his shoulder or hold her in the crook of his arm. He simply lifted her—his hands spanning her waist, his arms outstretched—and marched her into the kitchen.
Jessica followed him. The living room only had a colonial-style couch in a beige-and-orange plaid that had either been a garage sale find or a sign that Curt was totally style-deprived. The only other piece of furniture was a large TV set. The man clearly traveled light. She wondered how long he’d been in Chicago? When he’d gotten the leg injury that caused him to limp? Why he’d made love to her and then acted like nothing had ever happened between them?
All off-limits subjects, she warned herself as she stepped into the kitchen.
Morning sunlight streamed through the large window over the sink. The cabinets were white, as were all the appliances and the countertop, which had nothing but a coffeemaker on it.
Seeing her interest, he said, “I childproofed all the cabinets so she’d be secure in this residence.”
“That’s good.” So Blue would be secure, but would she ever know what it felt like to have her father give her an affectionate bear hug? Or would she forever be taking orders barked out in a curt voice? Forever falling short of expectations set too high to ever be accomplished.
Jessica certainly knew how that felt. She didn’t want the same thing happening to Blue. Didn’t want to see the little girl’s natural exuberance drained right out of existence. Blue had already had enough tragedy in her life, what with her mother dying. What she needed now was stability, understanding and lots of love.
Jessica’s arms ached to hold the little girl, to give her the loving she needed. The only thing that held her back was the knowledge that she was already in way over her head. Besides, the bottom line was that she was merely Blue’s preschool teacher. Curt was the parent in this scenario.
Which only served to remind her of how she’d once daydreamed about what kind of father he’d be. During that pregnancy scare so long ago, she’d anticipated his reaction to hearing they’d made a baby together when they’d made love in the back seat of his Mustang. In her teenage fantasy he’d been surprised, and then he’d taken her in his arms and asked her to marry him. It wouldn’t matter that he’d just joined the marines. She’d wait for him.
How foolish she’d been. How dangerously naïve. She’d badly wanted a baby, wanted someone of her own to love. That hadn’t changed. What had changed was Jessica.
She no longer had to worry about pregnancy scares. Not after being gently told a few years back by her elderly family practitioner that she had a badly tipped uterus, so badly tipped that it was extremely doubtful she’d be able to conceive.
So she’d closed the door on one dream and focused her attention on her work teaching preschoolers, never thinking that one day she’d be teaching Curt how to deal with his own daughter.
Chapter 3
DISMAYED AT THE direction of her thoughts and at the unexpected sting of threatening tears, Jessica mentally changed gears. This wasn’t about her or Curt, it was about Blue.
Tugging out the yellow legal pad of paper where she’d written up her notes, she consulted the first page. “Most Daddy Boot Camps are designed for new fathers with infants,” she told him. “I’ve adapted a program to your special needs. I thought we’d cover the basics—eating, getting dressed, bathing and bedtime.”
Startled, Blue looked out the window and practically howled, “Noooo! Not bedtime now.”
“That’s right, it’s not bedtime now,” Jessica agreed in a soothing voice. “Let me see your beautiful clean hands.” Blue eagerly held them out for her appraisal. “Very nice.”
“Very nice,” Blue agreed with a nod.
“Looking good,” Curt said, tossing the dirty towel into the sink.
“Looking good,” Blue repeated.
“Is there any one of the areas I’ve listed that you’re particularly having trouble with?” Jessica asked Curt.
All of them. But he wasn’t about to admit that. Instead he said, “You might as well go over all of them. But I have a few questions for you first.” Picking up a notebook of his own, he listed them in rapid-fire succession. “How often do you have fire drills? Are you trained in CPR and pediatric first aid? Is the school registered or licensed with the state?”
She appeared to be impressed by his questions. “I see you’ve been doing some reading as I suggested.”
“That’s right.” He hated feeling incompetent, so he’d made it a point to find out as much as he could in the past few days. A lot of what he read he considered to be psychological babble. He was a bottom-line kind of guy. But he was encouraged to read that kids needed schedules and routines. So did marines. The recruits he trained needed the discipline to follow orders.
Having a raw recruit overcome their fear of heights enough to finally rappel down a tower gave him a feeling of accomplishment. Maybe this was Curt’s chance to overcome a fear of his own—the fear of being a parent. Overcoming fear was another big deal for a marine.
Yeah, he liked looking at the process that way.
“Did you hear anything I just said?” she asked him in exasperation.
“Yes. You said you were trained in CPR and pediatric first aid, that the preschool is licensed by the state and that you have the required number of fire drills.” Learning to concentrate on more than one thing at one time was another advantage he possessed over an average dad. Another thing the marines had taught him. “Now tell me the secrets of dressing.”
“Secrets, huh? You make it sound as if there’s only one way of accomplishing these goals. There isn’t. Sometimes it’s learning by trial and error. What I can do is give you some suggestions. First off, I’d mention that Blue here is a little girl, not a sack of potatoes.”
“Blue is a little girl,” Blue repeated proudly. “Is not potatoes. Is not a dog.”
“Your point being?” Curt demanded of Jessie.
“Just that you seemed a bit uncomfortable carrying her.”
That’s because he was a man more accustomed to carrying an M-16 rifle than a kid.
“Show me. Please,” he added.
“Just act naturally.”
“Easy for you to say,” he muttered.
“Here…” Jessica bent down to lift Blue in her arms, propping the little girl on one hip. “Like this.”
“That’s a girly way to hold a kid,” Curt scoffed.
She raised an eyebrow at his tone of voice. “Oh, so now you’re the expert?”
“Here.” He took Blue from her and after an awkward moment or two, shifted his daughter so that she was perched atop his shoulders.
“Giddeeup horsey!” Blue shrieked, digging her heels into his chest.
“Be careful she doesn’t use your hair as the horsie’s reins,” Jessica warned him.
“It’s not long enough,” he replied, clearly not concerned.
He was right. But since his hair wasn’t long enough for her to take handfuls of, Blue instead grabbed hold of his ears.
“No grabbing of ears,” he ordered, wincing slightly. “Do you read me, young lady?”
“Yessir.” She tried to salute and in doing so almost fell off his shoulders. Lowering her, he gingerly propped her against one shoulder and held her in the crook of his left arm.
“Gotta go potty!” Blue loudly announced, whereupon he hastily lowered her to the floor as if she were radioactive.
“Need any help?” Jessica inquired, trying not to laugh.
“Who are you asking, Blue or me?” Curt said.
“Both of you.”
“Blue can go to the bathroom on her own, thank God. The cabinets in there are kidproofed, too.”
Jessica was pleased to note that he still kept a watchful eye toward the open bathroom door down the hallway.
During Blue’s absence, Jessica thought this might be a good time to address the issue of emotions. “Blue needs to know that you’ll love her no matter what, not just when she’s all cleaned up or when she’s a good girl. Remember that your child will look to you as a model of how to express emotions, so you need to make a point of expressing them honestly.”
Emotions weren’t something a marine needed. In fact, in his mind they did nothing but get in the way. As for honesty, he didn’t think Jessie really wanted him expressing his inner panic. No, giving in to fear never accomplished anything in his view.
“Blue needs to see signs of your love and affection,” Jessica continued. “Various ways of doing that are giving her hugs and kisses to congratulate her when she completes a difficult task, or to console her when she cries, or to comfort her when something hurts.”
“Is that what your father did for you?”
His question caught her by surprise. “No,” she quietly replied. “Quite the opposite.”
“Yet you seem to have turned out okay,” Curt pointed out.
“Appearances are deceiving.”
“So basically you’re telling me that if I don’t hug her at just the right time she’ll be screwed up for life? Gee, no pressure there.”
“I thought marines were used to dealing with pressure,” Jessica countered.
“Yeah, well, I still don’t think parenting should be so complicated,” Curt grumbled.
“Stick around, soldier. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Jessica drawled with a grin.
Sucker punched. That’s how Curt felt. From nothing more than Jessie’s unexpectedly saucy smile. Ambushed by a woman with eyes so green they put sunlit leaves to shame.
Jeez, he was getting downright poetic here. A bad sign.
Or was it? Since when had being with an attractive woman been a crime? Since he’d become a dad probably.
But this was the best of both worlds. In Jessie he had a woman he was finding increasingly attractive, and a woman who knew how to take care of his daughter.
“I’s done,” Blue proudly announced from the bathroom. “I’s flushing now.”
“I’ve tried correcting Blue’s grammar,” Curt told Jessie, not wanting Jessie the Brain to think his kid was stupid.
“You don’t need to worry or to correct her each time. Instead you could just repeat the words yourself, perhaps say I am done cleaning the kitchen, so she’ll hear for herself how the words go together. It’s a natural progression as two- and three-year-olds start stringing words together, often mimicking what you say.”
“One of the reasons I now watch what I say around her,” Curt admitted.
“Good idea,” she replied.
Was the sunlight coming in through the window playing tricks or had that been a flash of attraction he’d just seen in her eyes? Curt wondered. Maybe Jessie had decided to stop holding a grudge against whatever it was he’d done back in high school.
Or maybe he was just imagining things.
He’d been on his own for so long that the thought of flirting with a pretty woman was enough to make his blood flow a little faster. This could get interesting, he decided with a sense of anticipation.
While Blue sat on the living room floor and played with her toys—an eclectic collection of trucks, dolls, and a well-worn teddy bear— Jessica put Curt through his paces.
“First things first,” she briskly told Curt. “Let’s begin with emergency first aid. How much do you know?”
