- -
- 100%
- +
“Really?”
“Really.”
His eyes swung to hers. Tonight, an odd whiff of vulnerability overlaid the cool confidence, that aura of success he normally exuded. In fact, if she weren’t mistaken, there was the slightest shimmer of a need for approval in his expression. Although she imagined he’d chop off a limb rather than admit it.
“I’m here so seldom, I never got around to …” He made a rolling motion with his hand. “You know. The stuff.”
She smiled, his obvious discomfiture settling her own nerves a hair or two. “Accessories, you mean?”
“Yeah. All those little touches that make a house a real home. Like your apartment.”
What a funny guy, she mused, then said gently, “It’s not the stuff that make a house a home, C. J. It’s the people who live there.”
He nodded, then apparently noticed she was about to drop the baby. “Urn … well, I suppose I should show you where you and Ethan are going to sleep.”
“Good idea. Although …” She hefted the baby toward him. “Here, he’s gettin’ heavier by the second.”
“Oh … sure.” After only a moment’s hesitation while he apparently tried to figure out the best way to make the transfer, C.J. gingerly slipped his hands under the baby’s armpits, giving her a relieved smile once the baby was securely settled against his chest, rubbing his nose into the soft gray fabric of his daddy’s shirt. C.J.’s eyes shot to Dana’s. “Does he need a tissue or something?”
Dana laughed, even as her insides did a little hop-skip at the mixture of tenderness and panic on C.J.’s face. “No, I think that means he’s sleepy. We’d better get the crib set up pretty soon so we can put him down.”
“Crib. Right. Follow me.”
C. J. loped down the hall leading off the foyer, Ethan clearly enjoying the view from this new, and much higher, vantage point. Dana trotted dutifully along behind, catching glimpses of a simply furnished dining room, a massive kitchen given to heavy use of granite and brushed steel and a family room with a billboard-sized, flat-panel TV.
“I thought we could put the baby in here,” he said, as she followed him into a large, completely empty bedroom with plush, wheat-colored carpeting and a view of the golf course … and the pool. Of course. “And then this room,” C.J. said, barely giving Dana the chance to register that he’d already bought a beautiful wooden changing table and matching chest of drawers, “is yours.” She double-stepped to catch up.
“Oh!”
Not at all what she’d expected, given the masculine minimalism in the rest of the house. And certainly the cinnabar-hued walls were a shock after the inoffensive real-estate neutrals in her own apartment. But the rich color, the honeyed pine headboard on the high double bed, the poufy, snowy-white comforter and masses of pillows, immediately brought a grin to her lips.
“Blame the decorator,” he said behind her.
“Thank the decorator, you mean,” she said, unable to resist skimming a hand across the cool, smooth surface of the comforter. She could sense him watching her; she didn’t allow herself the luxury of contemplating what he might be thinking. That he’d been invaded, most likely.
“Well,” he said. “That’s good, then. Okay. Well. Here,” he said, handing back the baby. “I’ll go bring in the rest of the stuff.”
Jiggling Ethan, she stuck her head into the adjoining bathroom, shaking her head at the expanse of marble and the multiheaded shower stall that looked far grander than anything that utilitarian had a right to look. “Heck, you can even see the entire city from the john,” she murmured to the baby, who had decided prying off her nose would be amusing. “Is that weird or what?”
But then, so was this whole setup. Moving in with a man she barely knew wasn’t exactly something she did on a regular basis. Heck, moving in with any man wasn’t something she did on any kind of basis. But still. As weird setups went, this was about as classy as they came.
Once back in the bedroom, she stopped dead at the sight of the gargantuan, charcoal-gray cat sitting smack dab in the middle of the bed. Pale green eyes—curious, bored—assessed her with unnerving calm. C.J. had a cat? A cat who undoubtedly made walls tremble when he walked through the house. A cat who—the thing yawned, sucking up half the air in the room—probably lived for catching and eating things. Like mice. Chihuahuas.
Tasty little finches.
With another yawn, the beast fell over on his side and began to clean one paw. “You are so not sleeping with me,” Dana said, then carted the baby out of the cat-infested room and back to his own, where C.J. had set up the portacrib in a corner close to one window.
“Do we need to change him or something?” C.J. asked.
“Nope. Already did that before we left the apartment, so he’s good. Okay, sweetie,” she whispered to the tiny boy, nuzzling his corn-silk head before lowering him into the crib. “It’s night-night time. Get that white blanket out of the diaper bag, would you? Yes, that’s it,” she said to C.J. Except instead of reaching for it, she said, “On second thought, why don’t you give it to him?”
“Me? Why?”
“Because it’s his ‘lovey.’ It makes him feel secure. So he’ll start associating feeling safe with you.”
“Uh, gee, Dana. I don’t know….”
“C.J.” she said firmly. “The idea’s to make him feel safe. Not you.”
Those blue eyes, gone a soft gray in the twilight, grazed hers for a moment before he nodded, then lowered the blanket into the crib. The baby grabbed it and keeled over, his eyes shutting almost immediately. C.J. stood as though paralyzed, gripping the railing.
“Good God,” he breathed, his voice littered with the shrapnel of confusion, amazement, shock. “There’s a baby sleeping in my house.”
“Now you know how I felt the past two nights. Except he didn’t do a whole lot of sleeping. Come on, we can finish up in here later.”
But when she got to the door, she turned to find C.J. still rooted to the spot, his gaze glued to the now-sleeping infant.
She opened her mouth to call him again, only to tiptoe away instead.
Hours later, C.J. lay in bed, his hands linked behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Had he ever had—what had Dana called it? A “lovey?”—when he’d been a baby? Somehow, he doubted it. Although, from what she’d said when he asked her about it over pizza a little later, most babies had something they use to soothe themselves when they were by themselves—a blanket, a stuffed toy, a small pillow.
Actually, she was a font of information, especially for someone who insisted she knew nothing, really, about taking care of babies. With a pang of sympathy, he wondered how long she’d been studying up, in anticipation of being a mother herself someday. How cheated she must have felt to have had that particular opportunity ripped from her. And yet, when he’d questioned her about it, there’d been no bitterness in her voice that he could tell. Just acceptance.
Grace, he thought it was called.
C.J. hauled himself upright, his abs having plenty to say about how long it had been since he’d even set foot inside the state-of-the-art exercise room next to his bedroom. Still, there was no denying the wonder in Dana’s eyes when she looked at Ethan. Or the longing. And watching the two of them, the way they seemed to mold themselves to each other, he’d felt … ashamed. Inadequate.
And, again, envious.
He forked his hand through his hair three times in rapid succession, it finally registering that the cat had abandoned him sometime during the night. At the same time, a tiny sound came from the baby monitor next to his bed—his nod to gallantry, since Dana had been clearly dead on her feet. In the dark, C.J. stared at it, not breathing.
There it was again. Not exactly distressed, he didn’t think, but definitely a call for attention. Sort of a questioning gurgle. On a sigh, C.J. got up, adjusted the tie on his sleep pants and plodded to the other end of the house, flicking on the hall light to peer into Ethan’s room. The wide-awake baby inside turned his head toward the light, then flipped over onto his tummy, giving C.J. a broad grin through the mesh of the portable crib. A second later, C.J. caught wind of the reason behind the baby’s wakefulness.
Uh …
He scooted down the hall toward Dana’s room, both surprised and relieved to find her door open. A shaft of light from the hall sliced across the bed, where she lay sprawled in a tangle of sheets and nightgown, making cute little snuffling sounds. With an unmistakable “What the hell?” expression, the cat’s head popped up from behind the crook of her knees.
From the other room, Ethan made a noise that sounded like “Da?”
“Dana?” C.J. whispered.
Nothing. Out like a light. Although the cat prrrped at him. And Ethan let out another, more insistent, “Da?” Or maybe it was “Ba?” Hard to tell.
Resigning himself to the inevitable, C.J. released another breath and returned to the baby, who was now lying on his back, thoughtfully examining his toes with a scrunched-up expression that made C.J. chuckle in spite of … everything. Ethan swung his head around, his entire face lighting up in a huge, nearly toothless smile of welcome. Or maybe gratitude.
And way deep inside C.J.’s gut, something twinged. Like unexpectedly pulling a previously unused muscle.
“I suppose you need your diaper changed,” he said, turning on the light. Ethan, now beside himself with anticipation, started madly flapping his arms and kicking his legs, which wasn’t doing a whole lot for the smell factor.
Okay, he could do this. Just as soon as he figured out what the hell half the things in the diaper bag were for. C.J. rummaged around in the bag for a few seconds, pulling out some kind of pad thing that looked reasonable to spread underneath the kid on the changing table, followed by a diaper, powder, wipes and lotions. There. That should do it. Then he sucked in a huge breath, hauled Mr. Stinky out of the crib and over to the table, and got to it, trying to picture his own father doing this for him. Somehow, he wasn’t seeing it.
A minute or so and roughly half a container of wipes later, he heard Dana’s huge yawn behind him.
“Now you show up,” C.J. muttered, stashing the last of the wipes inside the gross diaper and cramming the whole mess into what he hoped was a bag for that purpose. But, judging from Ethan’s kicks and little squeals, the kid was clearly enjoying being sprung from the nastiness so much C.J. hadn’t had the heart to put the clean diaper on him yet.
“Sorry,” she said on another yawn. “I was really out. Uh, C.J.?”
He twisted around and thought, simply, Uh, boy. Heavy-lidded eyes. Masses of sleep-tangled hair in a thousand shades of red, brown, gold. Pale shoulders, nearly bare save for the skinny little straps holding up that nightgown. A plain thing, nothing but yards of thin white fabric skimming her unconfined breasts, falling in deeply shadowed folds to the tops of her naked feet, revealing toenails like ten little rubies. Except for where it clung just enough, here and there, to stir all sorts of unrepentantly male thoughts and musings and such. C.J. mentally shook his head. “What on earth have you been feeding this kid?”
“Food. C.J., really, this isn’t a criticism, but you might want to—”
“Oh, crap!” he yelled as a warm stream hit him square in the chest.
“—not let the air get to his … him like that.”
C. J. yanked one of the wipes from the container and started swabbing himself off. “Don’t you dare laugh.”
He heard her clear her throat. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” The gown billowed at her feet as she crossed the room. “Go get cleaned up,” she said, laughter bubbling at the edges of her words. “I’ll finish up here.”
When C.J. returned a minute later, she was bent over the crib, babbling at the baby, her voice soft and warm as a summer breeze, radiating enough femininity to drown a man in all things good and bad and everything in between. When she smiled up at him, he frowned. She misinterpreted.
“Oh, don’t be such a grump,” she gently chided. “It’s just a little baby pee. Isn’t it, sweetie?” she cooed to Ethan. “You were just doin’ what comes naturally, weren’t you?”
C.J. grunted, appreciating the irony of his son, the byproduct of his doing “what comes naturally,” returning the favor. “Glad you’re having such fun at my expense.”
Dana handed Ethan’s blanket back to him, then padded back toward the door, signaling to C.J. to follow. “They say,” she whispered, “if you don’t play with them when they wake up in the middle of the night, they’re more likely to go back to sleep. Otherwise they’ll think it’s party time. And if it makes you feel any better, he got me good the first night I had him, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.” She started down the hall as C.J. flicked off the light. “I looked like I’d been in a wet T-shirt contest—” Her eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and one hand shoved her hair back from her face. Which probably wasn’t the brightest move in the world on her part in that lightweight gown. “Wow, I’m suddenly starved. What I mean to say is … how about I meet you in the kitchen and we can see what you’ve got. In your refrigerator, I mean.”
C.J. folded his arms over his bare chest, thoroughly enjoying the moment. Especially the part involving the play of the hall light over all those folds and things. Dear God, the woman had more curves than a mountain road. And C.J. wouldn’t have been human—let alone alive—had he not entertained at least a brief thought involving the words test drive.
“Oh, I can tell you what I’ve got,” he said evenly, even as You are so screwed blasted through his skull. Because if they kept meeting up at night like this, with her dressed like that, he was gonna have a helluva time remembering she was here strictly for the baby’s sake. And only temporarily, at that.
Ah, hell. Not the doe eyes. Anything but the doe eyes.
“Leftover pizza,” he said, and she flinched slightly and said, “What?”
“What I’ve got. In the refrigerator. Leftover pizza.”
“Oh,” she said, then smiled brightly. “Fine. Let me grab my robe and I’ll be right there.”
“You want it hot?” C.J. said to her back as she scurried away. When she spun around, those eyes ever wider (how did she do that?), he grinned. Because, dammit, he was having fun. And okay, because he wanted another glimpse of her before she covered everything up with a robe. “The pizza,” he said.
Their gazes sparred for a moment or two before she said, in a voice that managed to be sweet and sultry at the same time (and he really wanted to know how she did that), “Don’t put yourself out on my account. I’m perfectly capable of … taking care of myself.” Then she grinned. With her head tilted just … so.
A doe-eyed, sweet-sultry voiced smart ass. Yeah, he was in trouble, all right.
Chapter Seven
“Okay,” Dana said, peering into C.J.’s destroyer-sized refrigerator at the box of leftover pizza, three cans of beer and quart of milk staring balefully back at her. “Somebody’s gotta do some serious shopping tomorrow. This is pitiful. And so—” she hauled out the box of pizza “—clichéd.”
Speaking of pitiful. And clichéd. What was up with that little do-si-do between them out in the hallway a few minutes ago? Not to mention her reaction to it? Okay, so it had been a while, but … yeesh.
She stuck a piece of mushroom-and-olive pizza in the microwave, stole a surreptitious glance at the beard-hazed, bed-headed hunk somehow sprawled on a barstool, his elbows propped behind him on the bar, and thought, This will never do. Well, actually, he’d do quite nicely, she imagined, but there, she was definitely not going. Unfortunately, here, she already was, which was why she was having all these wayward, albeit intriguing, thoughts at two-thirty in the morning.
“So we’ll go shopping,” C.J. said on a yawn, then gave a lazy, not-quite-focused grin. “There you are, you rotten beast,” he said to the cat, who had wandered into the kitchen and was now sitting in the middle of the floor like the world’s largest dust bunny. “So what’s with throwing me over for the first beautiful woman to cross your path?”
Dana’s gaze hopped from the cat back to C.J. Such a simple sentence to produce so many questions. And, as if sensing the most profound of those questions, C.J. shrugged and said, “You and Ethan are our first overnight guests.”
“And how long have you been here?”
“In this house? Two years, give or take. I was previewing it for a client and decided to buy it myself.”
“I don’t blame you, it’s really spectacular.”
“What it is, is an investment. In five years, it’ll be worth twice what I paid for it, easily.” The muscles in his face eased, though, when he said, “Funny, though, how I wasn’t even looking for a house.” He tore off a tiny piece of cheese and threw it either to or at the cat, Dana couldn’t tell “Anymore than I was looking for a cat. But I opened the door one stormy night, just to smell the rain, and this soaking wet thing—” another piece of cheese rocketed through the air “—ran inside. And never left. Right, Steve?”
“Steve?”
C.J. shrugged. “It seemed to fit, what can I say?”
The microwave dinged. She retrieved her pizza and leaned against the counter to eat it standing up. “You don’t strike me as a cat person.”
“I’m not.” He tossed Steve a piece of pepperoni. Dana could hear the cat’s purr from clear across the kitchen.
“You could have taken him to the pound, you know.”
“Not once I’d named him.”
“Of course.”
He chuckled. “You—” he stabbed the air with his pizza crust for emphasis “—don’t like cats.”
She smirked. “I think it’s more that they don’t like me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I’ve had, at various times in my life, three cats. They’ve all run away.”
“Don’t take it personally. Cats are just like that sometimes.”
“My point exactly. At least with birds you put them in a cage, and there they stay.”
“Unless they get out. And birds aren’t real good at coming when you call.”
“Oh, and cats are?”
“When it suits their purpose, sure. But Steve’s the perfect roomie. Food, water, a patch of sunlight, access to my bed,” he said with a slanted grin, “and he’s good. And best of all, there’s none of that messy emotional stuff to weigh us down.”
“Ah. One of those no-strings, you-just-sleep-together relationships.”
“Like I said. Perfect.”
“Are you deliberately trying to annoy me or what?”
“Nope. Just tellin’ it like it is. Although, as I said, Steve dumped me for you tonight.”
She blinked, his earlier words finally sinking in. “What?”
“You didn’t notice? When I peeked in on you—”
“When you what?”
“I thought the baby might’ve awakened you, so I looked in to check. Anyway, there the cat was, plastered right up against you, happy as a clam. Not that I blame him.” He grinned, heat lazily flickering in half-hooded eyes.
Dana huffed. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”
“What can I tell you, it’s late, my defenses are down.”
Even if other things aren’t.
Bad enough that the unsaid words practically rang out in the cavernous room without Dana’s having no idea whose unsaid words they were.
Brother.
“So, shopping,” he said, scattering the unsaid words to the four winds. “What time do you have to be at work?”
And so it began. The great baby-and-work shuffle. Because their momentary sharing of living space notwithstanding, it wasn’t as if either of them could drop everything to stay home with a baby. The situation was still more expedient than living separately, perhaps, but far from ideal.
“Nine. Or thereabouts. I have to drop the baby off at my mother’s first.”
“Yeah, I’ll be gone by eight, so I guess the morning’s out.” Then his forehead knotted. “I thought you said your parents couldn’t take care of him?”
“What I said was, I didn’t think they should be saddled with taking care of a child at their ages. Especially since they’ve finally gotten to the point where they can load up the RV and hit the road whenever the mood strikes. As hard as they’ve both worked all their lives, they deserve time to themselves. When I suggested looking into day care, however, my mother had a hissy and a half.”
“I bet she did. Your mother’s a real—”
“Piece of work?” Dana said around a mouth full of blissfully gooey cheese.
“I was going to say, a real she-wolf when it comes to her family.”
“Same thing,” Dana muttered, and C.J. chuckled. But she’d caught, before the chuckle, a slight wistfulness that had her mentally narrowing her eyes.
“I take it, then,” C.J. said, his hands now folded behind his head, “a nanny or an au pair wouldn’t be an easy sell, either?”
“Let a stranger look after her own great-nephew? Not in this lifetime. Trust me, you do not want to get her started on the evil that is day care.”
His gaze was steady in hers. Too steady. “But sometimes there’s no alternative.”
“Yeah, well, you know that and I know that, and God knows millions of children have come out the other side unscathed, but this is my mother we’re talking about. As far as she’s concerned—” she finished off the slice of pizza and crossed to the sink for a glass of water, only to find herself completely bamboozled by the water purifier thingy on the faucet “—a child raised by anybody but family is doomed to become warped and dysfunctional. Okay, I give up—how the heck do you get water out of this thing?”
She heard C.J. get up, sensed his moving closer. He took the glass from her hand, flipped a lever and behold, water rushed into it. Amazing.
“Thanks,” she muttered, taking a sip as he returned to his seat.
“Maybe she has a point,” he said softly, and Dana started.
“Who?”
“Your mother. After all, I was raised by nannies and look at me.”
As if she could do anything else. He’d donned a T-shirt to go with his sleep pants, but for some reason it only added to the whole blatantly male aura he had going on. And while she was looking at him, she set the glass on the counter and crossed her arms. “Your mother worked?”
A small smile touched his lips. “No. She died in a crash when I was a baby.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t you dare go all ‘oh, poor C.J.’ on me. I never knew her, so it’s not as if I ever missed her. We’re not talking some great void in my life, here. Okay?”
She nodded, thinking, Uh-huh, whatever you say, then said, “What about your father?”
The pause was so slight, another person might have missed the stumble altogether. “He made sure I had the best caregivers money could buy,” he said. “All fifteen of them. You want another slice of pizza?”
“Fifteen?”
“Yep. Pizza?”
“Uh, no, I’m good,” she said, and he rose to put the rest back in the fridge. Somehow, she surmised the fifteen-caretakers subject was not on the discussion list. For now, at least. “Still,” she said to his back, “I’ve known warped people in my time. Trust me, you don’t even make the team.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said, shutting the door, then shifting his gaze to hers. “But I’m hardly normal, am I?”
“And is there some reason you waited until after I’m living in your house to mention this?”
He smiled, then said, “You do have to admit, reaching my late thirties without ever having been in a serious relationship is pushing it.”
“So what?” she said with a lot more bravado than she felt. “Lots of people are slow starters. Or … or prefer their own company. That doesn’t make you weird.”
Even if it did make him off-limits, she reminded herself. Especially when he leaned against the refrigerator, his arms crossed over his chest and said, “I’m not a slow starter, Dana,” he said quietly. “I’m a nonstarter. A dead end. Remember?”