To Keep Her Baby

by Melissa Senate

  Ginger was so caught up in the story that it took her a second to realize James had stopped because Gia had fallen asleep.

  She dropped down on the sofa, her shoulders slumped. “So much for motherhood coming naturally. Maybe I can take a class somewhere. Someone told me the town rec center holds classes for parents of multiples, so maybe there’s a basic motherhood class.”

  “Ginger, you don’t need a class in basic motherhood. Like I said, Gia just needed a shift in person. Your instincts said she was tired, and I dismissed that because the Maselos said she wouldn’t be tired for an hour. But you were right. Look at her.”

  Ginger eyed the sleeping tot. “I guess.”

  He smiled. “Hey. It’s your first time dealing with a baby. Give yourself a break. An overtired six-month-old is very hard to deal with.”

  “Except for you, James Gallagher, the baby whisperer.”

  “Let’s put her in her crib and then we can dig in,” he said, getting up.

  Ginger nodded and followed him to the gorgeous staircase, which was made of polished wood and had ornate details. When she’d first arrived at the house, she’d been blown away by it. It was a Colonial, according to James, from the early 1900s and had amazing period details. She’d never been in a house so fancy other than Madame Davenport’s. James’s house was pretty amazing, but the interior was comfort focused so she hadn’t been intimidated by the grandeur. But here, with the modern artwork on the pale gray walls and the kind of furniture she’d never be able to afford, she felt like a kid playing grown-up.

  She felt like the babysitter. Which she was.

  The wall along the stairway was lined with black-and-white photos of Angela and Dom’s wedding, and there were a bunch of baby Gia through the past months. I want a wall of pictures like this, she thought, her heart sagging so heavily she thought it might hit the steps.

  James found the nursery, second door on the left, in soothing shades of pale yellow. The crib was like a white wooden sleigh with light blue sheets covered with silver stars. Along the wall was a matching dresser with a changing pad atop it. Everything Ginger wanted to buy for her baby was in this room.

  You’re working toward it, she reminded herself. You have a great job. You’re focused. Soon she’d be done her session at Madame Davenport’s and would have her certificate of etiquette, which was really just a fancy piece of paper that said she passed all her finals and was no longer a person who’d throw a scone or gave someone the finger or wore the kind of heavy makeup and teensy bits of clothing to hide, instead of truly revealing who she was. She was done with that Ginger.

  Chin up, she stepped toward James. “I’d like to put her in the crib.”

  “Sure,” he said, gently handing the baby over.

  The eyes slid open. The face crumpled. “Waaah!” Gia screamed.

  “Oh no,” Ginger said, her own tears threatening again. Why was she so bad at this? She couldn’t be. She was going to have her own baby.

  “Hey,” James whispered, both hands on her shoulders. “Give yourself a chance. You’ve got this.”

  She sucked in a breath. She shifted the baby in her arms, then rocked her a bit, swaying her gently from side to side. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring don’t—” Ginger stopped singing when she glanced down at Gia’s beautiful face. She couldn’t believe it, but the baby’s eyes had closed again, her breathing steady. She was asleep! “I did it!” she said. This time, tears poked from happiness. And relief.

  She started singing very softly as she laid the baby down in the crib, then held her breath for a shriek. Not a peep. Gia quirked her upper lip and let out a little sigh, her chest rising and falling.

  “Let’s tiptoe out,” James said, heading for the door.

  She followed him, leaving the door ajar, illumination from the lamp in the corner giving the room a slight glow.

  Ginger wanted to jump up and down. Instead, she went for Madame Davenport’s old standby: poise. “All’s well that ends well, right?”

  “Oh please,” James said, holding up a palm. “Slap me five right now.”

  Ginger beamed and high-fived him. “Okay, so maybe I got the hang of it.”

  “You always had the hang of it, Ginger. But parenting is second by second. Even experienced nannies can’t always account for something changing up. You just have to adapt and go with it.”

  “Adapt and go with it,” she repeated with a nod. “Solid advice.”

  “How about that Chinese food now?” he asked and opened up a palm for her to precede him down the stairs.

  She eyed the baby monitor on the coffee table. They’d hear any little peep. And according to her research, she shouldn’t rush in at the first squawk but should wait a good fifteen seconds to teach the baby to soothe herself.

  Settled on the huge plush sofa, James clicked off the game and opened the containers of delicious-smelling food. Even lukewarm Chinese was great; that was how much Ginger loved chicken lo mein. James insisted on sharing his beef in garlic sauce, and within seconds, all the earlier stress was forgotten as she held up her noodle-full chopsticks for James to try a bite. He leaned forward and accepted it and all Ginger’s nerve endings tingled—again.

  “So which is harder—babysitting one baby or five thirteen-year-olds?” she asked, stealing a piece of succulent, sauce-drenched beef from his plate.

  “Hmm, good question. Unlike babies, thirteen-year-olds are capable of speech—doesn’t mean they actually tell you what’s wrong though.”

  Ginger took a sip of her water. “What do you mean?”

  “Take my brother Eli. When I moved home to take care of the quints, he went very quiet—weeks after the others had settled down to a grief-stricken acceptance. All moody. Disappearing to his room, not wanting to hang out with us. I kept asking what was wrong—beyond the obvious, I mean—and he’d say nothing and turn away. Our other brother, Anders, couldn’t get a word out of him either, and they’d been close before that.”

  “Did you ever find out what was bothering him?” she asked.

  He nodded and paused for a moment, as if remembering was too much. “Turns out, he blamed himself for the car accident. Our dad and Kerry were driving to a friend’s house, but Eli realized he’d left his baseball glove in their car and needed it for a game, so he’d called them, and my dad turned around. Five minutes later, they were rammed into by a drunk driver. When he finally told me—” He stopped and shook his head. “I’ll never forget how he’d sobbed. ‘It’s my fault, I killed them, Daddy turned around because of me. They woulda been nowhere near that drunk if it wasn’t for me.’ Howling with tears, his body shaking. It almost broke me.”

  Tears welled in Ginger’s eyes, and for a second she couldn’t speak. That poor kid. And poor James. The sole responsibility for that kind of pain—times five. “I can understand that. I’m sure you did a very good job of comforting him.”

  “At first, nothing I said helped. He just kept shrieking that it was his fault and sobbing. So I finally realized what he needed was just to get out his secret, this terrible weight he’d been holding in, and to cry about it. To deal with it. So I took it all in and let him just cry in my arms. He gripped me so tightly I had marks on my back and sides for weeks.”

  “Oh, James.” Ginger grabbed his arms, then realized she was doing the same thing. She rubbed where she’d grabbed and then squeezed his hand. “How harrowing.”

  “The good news is I figured that going forward, nothing else would ever be as painful as that. That I could handle anything. Of course, I was wrong. There were times I leaned on Larilla, but other times, I couldn’t betray confidences—like Eli’s.”

  “Couldn’t have been easy having everything fall on you. Five kids, all needing you.” She shook her
head. “I guess I thought all you had to do was feed them and get them off to school. But, man, that was the easiest part, wasn’t it?”

  He smiled and nodded. “Cooking, serving meals, their school schedules—all very predictable and clock focused. But yeah, dealing with mean-girl drama and fights and mono that took two of them out of school for six weeks, me caring for them around the clock to the point that I had to take a leave of absence from work. The flu, breakups, a failed class, a broken leg and wrist here and there. Thank God I had Larilla to deal with some of the trickier girl stuff. But I’ll tell you, Amelia and Merry had their whoppers. Merry got caught stealing lip gloss once. Amelia and her boyfriend at the time cut school for a week of junior year. Anders swore he was quitting high school about eight times until I finally convinced him to see it through. And Eli never met a girl he didn’t fall in love with, leaving a lot of angry exes sending all kinds of nasty things to the house, like dog poo in the mailbox.”

  “Jeez,” Ginger said. “Seven years of that?”

  “Well, the last couple of years have been pretty smooth sailing. Well, except now, with Josie.”

  “You know, you didn’t mention Josie in that litany of teenage problems. Sounds like she was the golden quint.”

  He stared at her as though taking that in. “Huh. You know, I guess that’s true. She always did her own thing, head down, but never gave me much trouble. Maybe that’s why I’m so stuck on her doing the right thing now.”

  “The right thing? Or your right thing?” Ginger asked.

  Instead of answering, he snatched a bite of lo mein with his chopsticks.

  “Yeah, I thought so,” she said with a smile.

  They spent the next ten minutes eating and chatting about their favorite foods and drinks, Ginger unable to stop staring at James, half in awe of what this wonderful guy had been through with raising his siblings and half in pure admiration of his hotness. Finally, the food was gone and the containers tossed.

  “Time for fortune cookies,” James said, sitting back down on the couch and handing her a wrapped cookie.

  “Ooh, I love fortune cookies. Well, the fortune more than the actual bland cookie.” She opened hers, cracked the cookie in half and slid out the little white paper. “‘A pleasant surprise is in store for you.’” She mock-scowled. “Bor-ing. Jeez.”

  He laughed. “Well, at least it’s pleasant.” He cracked his open. “Mine says ‘Good luck is the result of good planning.’” He raised an eyebrow, then ate half the cookie. “Not sure I agree with that. Luck is luck. The whims of Fate.”

  “Or not,” she said before taking a sip of her water. “I think it’s saying you have to be in it to win it. Like, if you don’t buy a lottery ticket, you’re not going to win the lottery. That’s planning your luck.”

  A smile slid over his handsome face. “I suppose so.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze but didn’t let go. He was warring with himself again, she knew. Wanting to kiss her—wanting much more than that—but reminding himself so dully that she wasn’t actually what he wanted. Why couldn’t there be a fortune about that?

  He put his hands on either side of her face and looked at her, and before his common sense could win out, she leaned close and kissed him.

  “Why can’t I resist you?” he breathed against her ear before kissing her back.

  “Don’t resist me,” she said. “It’s bad for your health.” She inched closer on the sofa and then went for it, straddling him, her arms wrapped around his neck. Every nerve ending was on fire. One of his hands fisted her hair while the other caressed her back, and then both hands suddenly slid up her shirt, over the non-push-up but still sexy bra. Wait till he saw the matching white lace underwear—he’d really be unable to resist.

  She was about to wiggle off him to do a slow striptease the way she used to, but she stayed put. First of all, they weren’t exactly in a private place; they were babysitting in someone’s home. Second, what if Gia woke up and needed her? She’d have to run up the stairs half-naked? That would hardly be hot—or appropriate. And imagine if the Maselos came home early and there she was on the stairs, boobs and all.

  He kissed her again, his hands everywhere, and she could easily feel how much he wanted her. For the moment he was giving in to how he felt, and she was running with it. They’d made a good team tonight. They had great Chinese. They were making out. This was exactly the night she’d hoped to have. He’d see that the life she could offer him was full of joy instead of heavy responsibility. Okay, maybe it was both. But the joy part was the key here.

  “Waaah!”

  Oh, pickles, she thought, using one of Madame Davenport’s favorite phrases.

  Maybe Gia would settle down.

  “Waah! Waah-waah!”

  “That’s our cue,” he said. “And not a moment too soon.”

  Rats. The “joy” hadn’t won out. Yet anyway. The night wasn’t over after all.

  She got up as unawkwardly as possible, but it felt very “cold light of day,” and there was nothing elegant about wriggling off him. He gave her a tight smile and she stood up, straightening her clothes as she dashed up the stairs, James behind her.

  “The little sneak,” she said as they peered into the now-quiet nursery. “She went right back to sleep.”

  He smiled, and they tiptoed back out and went downstairs into the living room.

  “These things really are a curse,” she said with a grin, gesturing toward the baby monitor on the coffee table. “Things were just getting good.”

  “Or out of control,” he countered, his expression way too serious. “I can’t say one thing and do another, Ginger. But when I’m with you, that’s exactly what happens. I say we can’t start something—for very good reasons—and then my hands are under your shirt.” He shook his head.

  “Can I help it if quality men like this toned-down look and actually find it sexy?” she quipped, running a hand down the length of herself. Who would have thought that a not-clingy tank top and well-fitting jeans could turn James Gallagher to putty?

  He walked over to the sliding glass doors to the patio, looking out. She could see his reflection in the pane, and he wasn’t smiling in the slightest.

  “James? What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t respond right away. Then he turned toward her, his arms folded against his chest. “A couple weeks after I moved back into my house to take care of my siblings, I convinced Lizzie—my college girlfriend, who dumped me—to come over so we could talk. I was trying to get her to see that things between us didn’t have to change just because I’d become the quints’ guardian.”

  Ginger thought it was strange that she both hated hearing about the ex and wanted to hear about the ex. This woman who’d won James’s heart—Ginger wanted to know every little detail about her. And felt pokes of jealousy. Especially because James looked so unhappy as he talked.

  She was full of questions, but for once decided to keep quiet and let him talk at his own pace.

  “Amelia and Merry and Josie couldn’t stand Lizzie,” he continued, turning around and coming over to the sofa. He sat down, and she moved over to the other side of the sofa, giving him some room, literally and figuratively. “They thought she was stuck-up and snooty and rude, and I guess she was, but I was young and stupid and thought I was in love.”

  In love. She could imagine what that would feel like, to have James’s love, all that goodness, hotness, intensity, integrity focused on her. It felt like a dream, and one that wouldn’t be coming true.

  “Anyway,” he said, “Amelia was calling me from the backyard, and I ignored her because I was working so hard in the living room to get Lizzie to agree to take me back. I thought Amelia was kidding around because she hated Lizzie and was just trying to get me to come out, so I kept ignoring her. Finally, Eli, who’d been upstairs, came rushing down the stairs and said he looked out the window an
d saw Amelia lying in a weird position, her face contorted in pain.”

  Oh boy. Ginger sat up straighter. “What happened?”

  “Amelia had been climbing a tree in the yard, something she started doing after the car accident. She’d climb higher and higher and freak me out, but then she’d scramble down and I’d feel so relieved that I couldn’t be mad at her for being such a daredevil. But that day she fell. From very high up.”

  “Was it bad?”

  He nodded. “She broke her leg in two places and one of her wrists. What’s interesting is that she wasn’t mad at me for ignoring her, but Eli lost it on me. ‘Why didn’t you check on her?’ he screamed at me. ‘All you care about is your girlfriend!’”

  Ginger got up and walked over to him, sat down beside him, a hand on his back. “I’m so sorry, James. My God, you really were put through the wringer, weren’t you?”

  He gave something of a shrug. “The six of us have been through a lot, for sure.” He shook his head. “Why did I tell you that story? I’m not even sure what made me think of it.”

  She glanced at the baby monitor. “Because we were getting hot and heavy, and the baby cried and needed us.”

  “I guess so. But there’s something else all tied up in it, Ginger. It all feels so complicated.”

  “It’s not,” she whispered. “You want me, but you don’t want the life I’m going to come with in about six months. You don’t want a family now, James. And I get it, I really do. After everything you’ve dealt with, I can see the lure of a summer getaway—the beach and mountains and cities. You get to forget everything—home and work. And when you come back, all refreshed, you hardly want a wife and a baby to be responsible for.”

  He froze at the word wife. Which made her feel like horse dung. She didn’t even know why she’d said it. It wasn’t as if James Gallagher was thinking about her that way anyway. It was a far cry from liking someone and making out to getting married.