Harper was still gripping his arm. Tightly.
“Oh my God, he was just out there? Outside your door?” she asked. “Oh my God, I had no idea. I didn’t hear anything! Someone could have come and taken him! He could have starved or gotten too hot or—”
“Harper,” James cut in firmly.
Her eyes came to his.
“He’s sleeping. I don’t think he’s been out there very long.”
“But…” She frowned. “How do you know?”
James shrugged. “He’s asleep. Babies fuss when they’re hungry and wet and hot and cold and stuff, right?”
He watched her take a deep breath, appreciating for the moment that he was the calm one. Harper Broussard had her shit together. He’d challenge anyone to say any differently. But it seemed that perhaps babies were one area where she was less than fully confident.
Of course, this baby was a huge surprise. To say the least.
“That’s a good point,” she conceded. She leaned in a little closer to peer at the baby.
Her demeanor was more that of a woman leaning in to check out an armful of rotten vegetables—very hesitant and with a scrunched-up nose and frown that made her look very put off—than one looking at an infant. But it gave James a chance to smell her hair. One of his favorite scents in the world. He took a deep lungful. Might as well. If he was going to be holding a baby, he might not get her very close very often. Seemingly.
Something about Harper being even less enthusiastic about the baby than she had been about the bearded dragon made James feel a shot of I-want-to-take-care-of-this. He liked her confidence and her sharp wit and her intelligence. But he also liked the little flickers of surprise he saw in her eyes from time to time when he said or did something that she clearly hadn’t been expecting. Like when they’d talked about music. He’d given her a lesson on the history and rise of jazz music. Or when Clyde had come up asking for assistance on a pretty bad burn he’d gotten in the candy store kitchen, and James had taken quick care of it.
He should maybe feel insulted that she thought he didn’t know anything about anything, but instead it made him want to tell her—and show her—all of the things he was good at.
“Can you take him while I run to the store?” James asked.
He said it mostly to see what her reaction would be, because it had only just now occurred to him that he’d need supplies for the baby.
Her eyes went round, and she took a huge step back from him and the baby. “Take him?”
“Yes, watch him.” James bit back his smile. So Professor Broussard wasn’t maternal. Okay. She was downright gorgeous when she was cuddling and playing with Fred, and that loving, warm side of her was a huge fucking turn-on, but babies might be a different story. “I can’t leave him in my apartment alone, obviously, and I don’t have a car seat or anything for the truck to take him with me.”
He could, of course, have some things delivered. Or call any one of his friends to bring him stuff. Hell, all of his closest friends were also dads. But he wanted to do this with Harper.
He wanted to do everything with Harper.
Yep, red flag.
If he wanted to stay single and unattached and with a different woman every night.
But that was becoming less and less appealing.
While the woman standing in front of him in soft cotton flannel pants and fitted tank top with her hair up in a messy bun and no makeup on, looking like the baby in his arms was about to leap out and bite her, was more and more appealing every damned time he saw her. Especially now that they’d had a date for sex.
Because that was absolutely what the other night had been, and he wasn’t going to let her forget it.
As soon as he didn’t have a baby to deal with.
He looked down. When would that be? Who was this? Why was this baby on his doorstep? What the actual hell?
He felt his heart rate kick up again as his amusement over Harper’s reaction gave way to the reality of what was actually going on.
“I’ll go.” Harper stepped to the side, carefully, as if to avoid touching the baby. Like having a baby in his arms was contagious or something. She slipped into her sandals that were always by the door and grabbed her little purse and keys. “I’ll get stuff. You stay here with… him.”
But she couldn’t go anywhere because James and the baby were very much in the way.
“You’re going to go?” he asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
So she was clearly freaked out by the idea of the baby—understandably, honestly—but she was still willing to jump in and help James. Maybe not touch the baby, but she was there for James.
God, he wanted to kiss her. Badly. Not because she was dressed in a short, tight dress in a club, moving her hips and rubbing against him, saying dirty things and giving him fuck-me eyes. But because she was going to help him, even with something she was clearly very uncomfortable with.
“Do you know what to get?” he asked.
“Diapers, food, formula.”
He nodded. “A car seat. A crib. Probably some… toys?” He looked down again.
“Toys?” she repeated. “What kinds of toys?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old is he?”
“I have no idea.” When he looked up, he saw her watching him with one eyebrow lifted. “What?”
“You have no idea?”
“How would I know that?” he asked. “I mean, somewhere between a few days and a year?”
Harper actually propped a hand on her hip. “You can’t narrow it down, even a little? There have been that many?”
He frowned. “That many what?”
“Women.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The baby squirmed in his arms, and James realized he’d tightened his hold a little. He relaxed.
“Well, he’s yours, yes?”
Her words punched him in the gut. He’s yours. James stared down at the baby. Why hadn’t that occurred to him? Because he hadn’t had sex with anyone in six months. Not since Harper Broussard had first opened her apartment door and given him homework on olive trees.
But babies took longer than that to make. Well, not to make. That only took a few minutes if you wanted to get scientific about it. But the whole pregnancy thing took more than six months. So really any of the women in the maybe three or four months before Harper could be the mother of this baby.
Holy shit.
It wasn’t like that was hundreds. But it was… more than one or two.
He heard Harper take a deep breath and he looked up.
“The baby is less than six months old. Forty weeks of pregnancy. That means it’s someone you slept with about sixteen months ago who also knows where you live.” She moved closer and then nudged him out of the way. “I’ll be back.”
She slipped out of the door before James could say anything.
She could not be upset about this.
But she was.
Harper pushed her cart up and down the aisles of the twenty-four-hour shopping center that had everything from fresh produce to diapers to car seats to wine.
She had a little bit of all of that in her cart. Except the produce. She didn’t need fresh veggies. She needed diapers. And wine.
How the hell had that happened?
An hour ago she’d been sitting in her apartment trying to read over papers her students had turned in that morning, unable to keep from glancing at the clock over and over, wondering if James would be home tonight. And if so, whether he’d come over. And if he did, would he want to pick right up where they’d left off with the phone flirtation the other night?
He’d gotten home while she’d been at class yesterday, and she knew he was likely sacked out from the long night at the fire, so she hadn’t gone over. But she’d thought about him all night. She’d woken up to find him gone again. When his schedule got thrown off by a big fire where extra personnel was called in, it took a bit for him to get back into routi
ne. But she’d assumed he’d be home at his usual time tonight. She’d hoped.
When he’d come pounding on her door, he’d scared the daylights out of her. She’d rushed to the door, half worried and half hoping it was all because of pent-up desire and he was going to storm in, sweep her up in his arms, and stalk into her bedroom.
She hadn’t expected him to look panicked.
She had definitely not been expecting a baby.
Harper turned around at the end of the wine aisle and went back to add another bottle.
A baby.
She was fine with babies. Pretty much. In theory. She didn’t have much experience with them. But she was fine with them. As far as she knew, anyway.
She supposed it was like what James had said about Henry… she’d never met a baby she didn’t like. She just hadn’t met a lot of babies.
What she hadn’t expected was a hard punch of jealousy.
She wasn’t opposed to dating a guy with a kid. But dating a guy who was divorced or widowed or had already figured out the co-parenting thing with the mom was completely different than… this. This chaotic situation with a guy who she wasn’t even officially dating and who’d now had a baby anonymously left on his doorstep. There were no established roles, no custody agreements, no structure, no plan. This was very outside her comfort zone.
There was also a woman out there somewhere who James didn’t exactly have closure with. Which meant that he needed to see her again and work some things out. To say the least.
Just when things were maybe changing between her and him.
Harper blew out a breath and grabbed another bottle of wine.
She never should have let him and his stupid olive tree into her life.
She checked out, paying an exorbitant amount for a car seat that she wasn’t even sure would work. She had no idea how old the baby was, but there was no way he was too big for this car seat. Still, she was glad that James would be the one to worry about it.
But as she loaded everything—being especially careful with the wine—she admitted that bugged her, actually. She’d love to leave him and his accidental offspring to themselves. They’d bond. They’d wait for mom to show up—or he’d figure out who she was and call her—and then they’d proceed to be whatever kind of family they decided to be.
And her staying the hell out of it, starting the second she got back to the building and delivered the supplies, would keep her heart from getting broken when the woman realized that James was absolutely the full package and there was no way she could walk away. And James, being James, would take her in and support her and help her and… hell, he might even fall in love with her. Harper knew from their conversations that he had several friends who were not just married or in very serious relationships but who were also dads. If she’d ever met a man who was a natural dad, it was James.
That might sound like a strange way to describe a hot young bachelor who played jazz and partied in the French Quarter when he wasn’t strutting around with his big old fire truck, saving lives. But he had a nurturing side that seemed second nature.
She wasn’t the only one who saw it—as evidenced by the number of people who kept dropping things off on his doorstep. Once something was there, it didn’t leave. He brought it in and took care of it. More, he enjoyed it. Sure, she’d made him look things up about olive trees and bearded dragons, but he’d gone with it. Not many guys would have. Especially when she didn’t drop her panties when he turned that first paper in. He’d done it good-naturedly and had actually seemed amazed when the tree started producing. And when he’d found out that he could leash-train Henry, he’d been like a kid on Christmas morning. Ami loved him, Courtney thought he was “the absolute best,” and… Harper had very little evidence to the contrary.
He’d be a great dad. He just would. Any woman would think that was hot, especially if it was with her baby.
Harper frowned at the wine bottles settled on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
She should have gotten one more.
When she got back to the apartment, it took Harper a little extra time to climb the stairs. Not because of the heavy load of wine and diapers, but because she was really reluctant to go up there. She liked him. She really liked him. She should have known better. She didn’t know him. She knew he didn’t bring a lot of women—okay, any women—to his apartment, but she had no idea what his social life looked like. She didn’t know if he had a couple of casual women he saw from time to time or if he was with a different woman every weekend. She didn’t know how he felt about kids, if he had younger siblings, or truly anything about any of that.
Now she was about to face him and a baby, and all of those unknowns were now front and center and very important.
She didn’t really want to know any of them. Because she was afraid she wouldn’t like the answers.
But there were only so many steps between the courtyard and their landing, and she found herself outside his door far sooner than she wanted to. Thankfully, he’d moved from her apartment to his. Thankfully, it had been obvious to him that the baby supplies were going in his apartment not hers.
Harper raised her hand to knock but heard the squawk of a baby, the bark of a dog, and the sound of a man trying to calm them both. She took a deep breath and turned the knob, stepping into James’s apartment.
“Thank God,” he greeted her. He gave their dog a look. “Fred’s jealous.”
Harper looked at Ami. “Ami, come here.” She dropped her bags by the door.
The dog gave a little bark at James but trotted over to her. Harper knelt and scooped the dog up, thankful to have something else to focus on than the big firefighter holding the tiny baby.
Now that the baby was out of the blanket and awake, it was easy to see that he was not very old at all. He couldn’t support his own head, and he was small, especially held in James’s big hands. He had the baby against his chest, cradled in both hands, one under his butt, one behind his head. The baby wasn’t wailing, but he was fussing, trying to get his hands to his mouth, moving his head back and forth, clearly seeking something to put in his mouth. Preferably something with food in it, Harper assumed.
Great, that was something else she could concentrate on, rather than James. Or talking. Or this situation as a whole big picture. One thing at a time, one detail at a time. That’s what she could do now.
“I’ll put Fred over at my place and be right back,” she said, also grabbing the bag with the wine in it. James didn’t need to know about how she’d intended to cope.
“You must be as shaken as I am.”
She looked over her shoulder at James. “What?” Had he seen the wine?
“You just called him Fred.”
She looked down at the dog. Oh, wow. Yeah, she must be shaken. What a small word for what she was feeling. “It’s a weird night,” she admitted. There was no reason she needed to act put-together and fine about all this. That wasn’t realistic.
“Yeah,” was James’s simple answer.
“I have the car seat in the car but thought this stuff was more important to bring up first,” she said. “There are diapers and wipes in there.” She nudged one of the bags with her foot. “You might want to try that until I get back to help with a bottle.”
Harper paused for a second, blinking. She was talking with James Reynaud about diapers and bottles. That was really happening. Wow. Weird was an understatement.
“I’ll do that,” he said, starting toward the bag.
She hurried out of the apartment with Ami. “You have to cool it,” she told him as she set him down inside her apartment and filled his food and water dishes. She gave him a treat and sat down on the floor with him, petting him and giving him a few cuddles to calm him. “None of us planned this, and we’re not thrilled either, okay? But you can’t be a pain about it. We’re going to… he’s going to figure it out.”
Harper sighed. James needed to figure this out. How he felt, what he wanted, who the mother was
, what he was going to do about the situation when he figured that out—or, she supposed, what he was going to do about it if he couldn’t figure that out. But this wasn’t an olive tree or a bearded dragon. This wasn’t something he could just ask her to stop in once in a while and look after. It also wasn’t a dog. She’d wanted a dog for years.
“Okay, behave,” she said, stretching to her feet. She put one bottle of wine in the fridge knowing she was probably going to need it later. She shut the door. Then opened it again and moved the bottle to the freezer. She didn’t intend to be over at James’s place very long, and the faster that bottle got cold, the better.
She let herself back in. James was in the bedroom, talking to the baby. At least, she assumed he was talking to the baby. Or himself. Either that, or he was on the phone with one of his dad friends. Which was a fabulous idea, now that she thought of it. He had a ton of resources. He should definitely call one of them and ask them to come over. Whoever it was could bring his wife, too. Then she could definitely slip out and get back to her dog. Dogs she knew.
She eyed the door. If she left now and just didn’t come back, he’d think of calling them. He was a resourceful guy. It wouldn’t take him long to think of that. Or if he showed up in her doorway with the baby in a few minutes, she’d suggest it to him. Then her gaze fell on the shopping bag with the formula and bottles in it. Okay, the baby probably needed to eat. It would take a bit for any of his friends to get over here. She could at least help with this first bottle.
Carrying the bag to the kitchen counter, Harper pulled a can of formula out and eyed it. She’d spent an inordinate amount of time looking over the variety offered at the store, comparing what was there to what she had pulled up on her phone. She wasn’t writing a paper for James on this, but she could do the research. She had no idea, of course, if the baby had any GI issues that would require special formula, so for now she’d gone with the basic kind for newborns and was going to hope for the best.
By the time James came into the kitchen area carrying the baby, who was now calmer, and again, cradled against James’s chest—which would certainly make Harper feel better, so she could relate—she had a bottle ready to go. She held it out.
Getting Off Easy Page 4