A Bachelor, a Boss and a Baby

by Rachel Lee

  He ought to be used to that by now. Years of experience and all that.

  Besides, and perhaps most important, there was something precious and nearly sacred about a woman with an infant in her arms. Bury the attraction. It had no place here and now.

  Chapter Seven

  By the following weekend, Diane had begun to feel more settled in every way. She had a routine going with Daphne that seemed to suit them both, and Aubrey’s sister-in-law had found a space for Daphne in the infant section of her early-learning school. Daphne seemed to be thriving there so far, and where she hadn’t previously been a frequent smiler, she seemed to be smiling most of her waking moments now. When Diane when to pick her up at the end of a workday, she was always greeted with a happy shriek and a huge smile. Surely she wasn’t imagining that those arms had begun to reach for her?

  Added to that was the new pediatrician’s approval of Daphne’s overall condition. The surgery was healing nicely and rapidly, her weight was good for her length—that had made Diane giggle a bit—and all was good. She had begun to roll herself from side to side, she could lift and hold her head up longer now when she was on her tummy and...

  Diane drew a deep breath as she realized just how fast Daphne was making strides in her development. Now that she worried less about her ability to take care of the girl, maybe she should expend a little energy on enjoying her milestones.

  And start taking some photos.

  Her cell phone rang as she was putting Daph into her car seat at the end of the workday on Friday. It was Blaine. She’d hardly seen him all week. He’d been out and about, and she’d been practicing a form of archaeology on the old development plan, the most recent—it was ancient—historical overlay and speaking with her new bosses about their vision for Conard City and the county.

  She spoke to them individually, in a way that wouldn’t violate public meeting rules, just to find out if they had some sort of vision they wanted her to pursue.

  Of course they did. In their varied ways, they wanted entirely more than was possible. Well, that was better than wanting to keep everything the same. But a number of years ago, a ski resort had made an attempt to build up on the mountain, and part of their plan had been to refurbish the town, to give it a more “Western” look.

  Which had left them with the Victorian additions of brick sidewalks on some of the streets and some pretty fancy lampposts that might have looked good in London nearly two centuries ago. Attractive but touristy.

  Properties that were registered as historic had to meet a whole bunch of preservation requirements. What Diane wanted to know was how far they wanted to go with that historic overlay, because right now the old one had been overridden quite a bit.

  Her head was all awhirl with the thoughts she’d gathered, and when she at last had Daphne belted into her car seat, she had to call Blaine back.

  “Sorry I missed you,” she said. “I was putting Daphne in the car. How was your week, and am I wading into some kind of trouble you’ve heard about?” Because the feedback she was getting wasn’t tremendously helpful.

  He laughed. “I’m sure you’ve dealt with self-interested government members before. We’ll talk if you have some time this evening. I never got around to putting the crib together after that struggle with the changing table...”

  She laughed as she closed the back door and opened the driver’s door. “We should have known we were headed for trouble when the box was labeled Please do not upside down box.”

  “Somebody certainly needed a better translator,” he agreed.

  She slipped into the driver’s seat and poked her key into the ignition. “And you build things all the time. Okay, I’d love for you to come over. I’ve got to go, because I’m about to drive.”

  “Fair enough. Dinner from Maude’s, or do you want pizza from the place on the edge of town?”

  “Pizza actually sounds good.”

  “I hope it is.”

  She laughed again and said goodbye. Life here was becoming familiar—she’d dared to take Daphne out to lunch with some of the women from the clerk’s office, and all in all, after a little more than two weeks here, she was beginning to feel comfortable.

  Except for her job. It was so obvious that the council and commission members who constituted the planning board hadn’t bothered to reach an agreement of any kind. This was going to be fun.

  * * *

  She had time when she got home to change Daphne into a fresh diaper and clothes. Ordinarily she bathed her in the evening, but tonight she decided to leave it for morning. The house felt a little chilly to her, and she wandered down the hall with Daphne in her arms to look at the thermostat. Sixty-eight, so the heat was working. Maybe she was the one who was chilled.

  Once she’d prepared Daphne’s bottle, she settled into what had become her favorite chore—feeding her daughter.

  She still hadn’t done anything about finding another chair for the living room, she thought as she cuddled Daphne close and smiled into her alert, bright eyes. She was in no condition to invite anyone over, like her new friends at the courthouse and the judge’s wife, Amber. Regardless, Blaine ought to have a better seat than the floor, especially with all he’d done for her.

  Putting that changing table together had been quite an experience. At one point she’d turned the directions upside down to see if they made more sense. The diagrams, which should have crossed any language barrier at all, had some big blanks.

  She’d learned something, though. Blaine had a massive vocabulary of cusswords in what sounded like two languages.

  “Pardon me,” he’d said at one point, “but cursin’ lubricates the brain cells.”

  She had laughed and still wanted to laugh as she remembered it. For all his cussing, he’d never once expressed frustration in any physical way, but he sure gave his language a workout. It had been quite a show.

  He’d managed to put the entire changing table, drawers and all, together in a remarkably short time, considering that the directions were so useless he’d practically had to figure out how to build it himself.

  “I should have used the county shop and made you one myself,” he said at one point.

  “Tsk, using county property for a personal project?” she’d teased. “I think we’d both be in hot water.”

  “As if this lot care,” he muttered in response.

  But that had been last weekend, and now that she’d had a week to get to know her bosses better, her opinion hadn’t improved a whole lot. They were politicians, most of them not really very good at it, and all of them more interested in their day jobs. In short, she thought all of them owned businesses and most of their attention was on ways to improve that. Too much, maybe. She didn’t know yet.

  Blaine arrived just as she was gently pacing with Daphne, encouraging her to expel any gas. The child seemed far more interested in waving her hand and staring at it than burping.

  “My, she’s growing active,” Blaine said as he paused to drop a kiss on the fuzzy little head before going to the kitchen with the pizza box. “I forgot to ask what toppings you like, so I took a wild guess. Lots of veggies and some pepperoni. Okay?”

  “Sounds great.” And it did. Already the aroma was making her mouth water. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure. So how’s the tot been doing this week? I’ve hardly seen you.”

  “She’s in the learning center now, and she seems happy with it. As for me, I’ve been picking the brains of the members of the planning board.”

  “Ah.” He turned with a smile and reached for Daphne. “May I? So do you need brain bleach after talking with that crew?”

  “Not quite,” she managed to laugh. “Let’s get to that in a minute.”

  She passed Daphne to him, enjoying the way he held her daughter. She didn’t know why, but it still surprised her that a guy would be interested in a b
aby that wasn’t his own. It was usually women who went gaga over infants. Holding Daphne on his shoulder, he rocked gently from side to side. She was still waving her arm, but she didn’t seem disturbed by the change of venue.

  “The doc said she’s doing well?”

  “In every respect,” she answered, feeling proud for no discernible reason. She hadn’t created the child—all she had done was be her caretaker for a few weeks.

  “Well, then, clearly you’ve been managing motherhood just fine, despite your concerns. Grab some of that pizza before it gets cold.”

  “I probably need to change Daph. Seems to go along with eating.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” he remarked. “I’ll do it. Just eat something, lady. I’ll be right back.”

  She had to admit it was nice to have him take over and allow her to eat a relaxed meal. Sometimes when Daphne slept, she managed to uncoil a bit, but this was all still new enough that her brain had a habit of throwing up things to be concerned about. Would she ever stop listening for every little sound, or wondering when the baby was too quiet if she was still breathing?

  Babies are hardy, the pediatrician had said today, echoing what Blaine had told her at their first meeting. After two weeks in her inexperienced hands, Daph seemed to have proved that, even though Diane couldn’t quite seem to believe it.

  “She’s sleeping,” Blaine said as he returned to the kitchen. He’d learned his way around during the great changing table affair and pulled a plate from the cupboard. Two tall foam cups sat on the table, and he pushed one to her. “I hope you like diet soda, because that’s what I brought. If not I can make some tea.”

  “It sounds good, actually.” She smiled and took one of the cups, ripping the paper off a straw and poking it through the lid. Tingling cola soon hit her tongue. “Oh, yum. I don’t have this very often. And the pizza is great. Thank you.”

  “Great, she says after one bite.” He winked. “I’ve found pizza to be very much a matter of taste, having eaten it everywhere it seems to have spread. I even hear that people from New York and Chicago can disagree about it quite vehemently.”

  “I’m not so picky. And this is just fine, as far as I’m concerned.”

  He nodded and helped himself to a slice. “What was your experience of our planning board?”

  She looked up and hesitated.

  “Go on,” he said. “I don’t squeal.”

  “I’m not sure yet what they really want,” she admitted. “Bigger and better, but bigger and better what? For example, they seem to be keen on historic preservation, but when we got to discussing the overlay, they got really fuzzy. I can’t decide if they’re not sure or don’t want to offend some people.”

  “Probably both,” he answered after he swallowed. “Big ideas are easy to come by. Implementing them, not so much. I guess that’s your job.”

  “To an extent, yes, but I also serve many masters.”

  He laughed a bit at that. “I hear you.”

  “You’ve been awfully busy this week, too, haven’t you?”

  “Getting ready for winter. We have some other culverts that don’t look as if they could withstand the weight of a plow, so they’ll be replaced. Then there’s a road that’s in the plan to be paved, but the ranchers don’t want it because it’ll increase the traffic and they’re worried about livestock.”

  She finished another bite of pizza before asking, “Are they right about the traffic?”

  “They may be. This was in the original master plan to be widened and paved, and it would certainly make a grand link between two other roads that are heavily traveled. It’s needed from that perspective. I’ve been considering it, however, and while I think it would be useful in a lot of ways, I’m sure it might cause problems in others. I’ll show you next week when you can find time, and you can add your thoughts, if you don’t mind.”

  “I probably should take a look at that and a lot of other things before I get into writing a new comprehensive plan. The other things being what the board members want.”

  “They want the moon and some green cheese, too.”

  That made her laugh. It also snapped her thoughts to him in a way that had nothing to do with Daphne or work. God, he was good-looking, she thought. He wore all that perfectly carved masculinity with a kind of comfort that said he wasn’t even aware of it.

  Brilliant blue eyes with black hair would always be arresting, but the rest of him begged the same attention. Broad shoulders, strong arms, large hands that appeared roughened from work. When he stood to hold Daphne, he displayed a flat belly, narrow hips and thighs that could have used a little more room in those jeans. And when he turned around... Man, she’d never have believed that she could admire a guy’s rump.

  While she’d noticed men occasionally since leaving college, she hadn’t devoted a lot of attention to them, because all too many of the ones she met worked with her.

  And now here she was again. Crap.

  “You ever marry?” she asked Blaine, then wondered what had possessed her. It was none of her business, for one thing, and it tracked too closely with her edgy, almost squirmy awareness of his masculinity. Some areas of conversation ought to be avoided.

  “No,” he answered, then reached for a second slice. “Haven’t managed to fit it in. Or maybe I just haven’t felt drawn to the right woman. Can’t say I’ve been lacking.”

  She quickly stuffed another mouthful of pizza in to silence the inevitable following question. Don’t ask.

  But a smile caught at the edges of a mouth she seriously would have liked to kiss—and wasn’t that unusual for her?—and he answered as if he had read her mind.

  “Lacking what, you’ll be asking.”

  She pursed her lips as she swallowed. “I never said that.”

  He chuckled. “As night follows day. I told you about my experience with Ailis. I’m not the sort to be once burned and twice shy, as the saying goes, and I did dip my toes in the water. As it happens, I never met anyone else who made me want to take another deep dip of that kind. Which is not to say I’ve been a saint. I do believe Patrick was the last true saint on the isle.”

  A giggle spilled out of her. “Blaine, you’re something else.” A quiver ran through her as he smiled back at her. The way that expression reached his eyes just melted her.

  “Well, to be honest about it, we grew a fair share of saints in the old days. The very old days. The rest of us weren’t quite convinced, it seems.” He winked. “Now me mam, she was always one for appealing to the Blessed Mother. I told you that. But it didn’t keep her from wearing Saint Brigid’s medal, I can tell you.”

  She liked the picture he was painting of his family. For all he said they’d spread out all over Europe, she got a strong sense from the way he talked that they were still very close. She’d missed that, as she’d missed a whole lot, it seemed.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Family other than your cousin? Boyfriends? Exes?”

  She looked down, losing her appetite. How in the world did you tell a man like this that you’d pretty much disowned your own parents? “My dad died when I was seventeen. Heart attack. I haven’t seen my mother in years.”

  He didn’t say anything immediately, for which she was grateful. It always sounded so bad when she said it, and it seldom helped when she explained that after her relationship with Max had turned so bad, she’d gone for counseling. It was the counselor who’d helped her to understand how her parents had poisoned her and set her up for Max’s abusiveness. Or that her own mother and father had never stopped tearing her down.

  “That must have been bad,” he finally said. “I’ve seen families that were...toxic. Is that what happened?”

  “You could say so. I don’t know. I’ll never know why I wasn’t good enough for them.”

  She pushed her plate aside, and reached for her beverage. Her mouth
had gone completely dry. “This isn’t a therapy session,” she said flatly. “Sorry.”

  “No need. It helps me understand why you’re so constantly afraid of failing Daffodil, though.”

  Her heart skipped and she looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Things you say. It’s not like this is just something new you need to master...”

  “Well, it is,” she argued. “And I tend to master new things.”

  “Clearly, or you wouldn’t have come so far in your career. No, it’s the way you often seem to think you must be wrong or will be wrong with Daphne. Well, you’ve had her over two weeks and she’s still with us, so you can’t be failing.”

  Her discomfort was growing, but it was no longer from sexual awareness. This man seemed to be penetrating her mind, looking inside into places she tried not to disturb. How had she revealed so much? What was more, she still had plenty of reason to fear failing with Daph. There were a whole lot of years and a whole lot of opportunities to make serious mistakes ahead of her.

  Having this child had made her aware of things she hadn’t thought about it a long time, things she’d thought she had ditched after her counseling. Funny how some things only hid themselves away and never disappeared.

  “You had a boyfriend?” he asked. “I get the feeling he wasn’t all that.”

  “He wasn’t. Oh, at first I thought he was.” She couldn’t sit still any longer, so she stood up and began to clear away the remains of her dinner. “Then came the point when I realized I was in danger of marrying my parents.”

  “Wow,” he said almost under his breath.

  “Well, when you’re raised by someone who hates you and makes you feel like a constant problem, you think you’re much better off with someone who only makes you feel like you don’t matter. I was endlessly criticized until I realized it felt like I’d never grown up and left home. So I left him.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Maybe.” She stood at the sink with a plate in her hand, suddenly tempted to just smash it. But she never did things like that. Never.