Getting Off Easy

by Erin Nicholas

  He took it, but his eyes were on her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  He looked really good. It was crazy. She knew that he had to be a little upset or at least frazzled by this. But he didn’t look it. He looked like he was just taking it in stride. Maybe that was the firefighter in him. He never knew what a work shift was going to bring. Maybe he was just really good at rolling with the circumstances as they presented themselves.

  Something else they did not have in common. She was a planner. Organized to a fault.

  “Professor?”

  He was the one holding a tiny life that he’d created with someone he barely remembered, a tiny life that was going to need him for literally everything for the next, well, who knew how long? Eighteen years give or take in some capacity. But he was just holding the baby as if it were another tree or lizard or drunk girl…

  “Harper?”

  She finally snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at him. “What?”

  “Are you okay?” He looked sincerely concerned.

  She decided to be honest. She shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Not a baby person?”

  He said it lightly, but she could see that he was suddenly tense.

  Oh, her not liking babies made him tense? But him having a baby all of a sudden was just a roll-with-it kind of thing? She frowned. “I guess I thought maybe we’d at least go dancing before we were making baby bottles together.”

  Something flickered in his gaze. “You want to go dancing with me, Professor?”

  His voice was deep and a little gruff, and that damned drawl made tingles trip up her spine.

  Yes, she wanted to go dancing with him. Dammit.

  She lifted her chin. “Guess that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

  “There’s such a thing as babysitters.”

  She lifted a brow. “You’ve been a dad for two hours, and you’re already thinking about leaving him with a babysitter?”

  “For a chance to get you up against me? Absolutely.”

  Harper didn’t know if it was because there was a tiny human between them or because he sensed there was a widening emotional distance between them, but that was as direct as he’d ever been about the chemistry, the… thing… going on with them. Harper didn’t like calling it a thing. That was such a nonspecific word that wasn’t really descriptive at all. But that was the problem. She, with all of her words and definitions, didn’t know how to describe her and James.

  That was probably for the best. The fact they hadn’t gotten to the phase where there was a clear definition meant it would be easier to end it.

  “You have your hands full now,” she said, looking pointedly at the thing that was literally filling his hands. “Dancing might not be your top priority.”

  “I can have more than one priority, Harper.”

  She wet her lips. She’d always found it flirtatious and sexy when he called her Professor, but when he said her first name like that, it was sexy in a different way. It wasn’t teasing. It was hot. It made her catch her breath a little.

  “The baby’s mother should probably be one of those,” she said softly, taking a step toward the door.

  “The baby’s mother and I don’t have a relationship.”

  Yes, because he didn’t even know who she was.

  “But you need to now.” Harper reached the door, gripping the knob in her hand.

  She wanted him to say something that would change all this, but what could that be, really? She wasn’t against being with a guy who had a son. But she was against getting involved with a guy who would be muddling through the messiness of… well, any messiness.

  If she met a guy who was already through this part, that was one thing. Or if James wanted to take her dancing after all of this was sorted out, that was different. But right now, he needed to focus on that, and she didn’t want to be hanging out on the periphery waiting to see what happened.

  She also didn’t want to be in the thick of it, getting attached to a man and—she blew out a breath. Yeah, she was scared of getting attached to the baby that belonged to a mystery woman with mystery motives who could show up again at any point and change everything just as they were making something work.

  Because she and James made things work. Surprisingly easily. Olive trees and lizards might not seem like much, but they’d found a routine. Courtney wasn’t a daughter or a sister, but they’d helped her, together, beyond the hangover and broken heart. But they had an easy partnership, a way of working together that was comfortable and natural, and it seemed like they’d known one another much longer than they had.

  And if the lizard and a reformed party girl weren’t enough to convince her, there was the dog.

  The dog was something else. Ami needed a lot more attention and care. He loved them both. He wanted them both. He needed discipline and love and feeding and companionship and guidance. They’d become fabulous co-parents to that dog. The dog had made her feel bonded to James.

  If the dog could do that, then caring for a child together… The idea terrified her.

  She’d known better than to let James help out with that dog so much.

  She should have stuck to her guns.

  So she was going to now.

  “Harper,” James stopped her as she pulled the door open.

  She sighed. “Yes?”

  “I don’t want this to change things.”

  She looked back. Big mistake. Hot guy, holding a tiny baby, looking concerned about her. Ugh.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “I need you.”

  She squeezed the doorknob. He meant for help with the baby, but still those three words tugged at her.

  Harper shook her head. “You need his mother.”

  “Har—”

  “I have to go.”

  She slipped through the door, pulling it shut behind her, before she could think about it any harder. Leaving James, knowing he needed help with something, felt strangely foreign. That was ridiculous. She’d known him for six months, and she’d made him learn everything about olive trees and bearded dragons and dogs. She hadn’t held his hand or taught him. She’d just… helped.

  Shaking off the feeling that she was letting him down and hurting him, she headed straight for the freezer and the wine.

  Ami came into the kitchen and looked up at her, cocking his head as she unscrewed the top and took a swig straight from the bottle.

  “What?” she asked.

  He gave a soft woof and then went to the door.

  “No, we’re not going to James’s.”

  Ami lifted a paw to scratch at the door. Harper lifted the bottle.

  Ami whined. Harper wanted to whine, too. Instead she… wined.

  But she only took another drink. Then she recapped it and put it in the fridge.

  Ami came back over to her.

  “I’m not putting it away because I’m going over there. But if something happens in the night, he might need help, and he might not think of Caleb first,” she explained, referring to his friend and fellow firefighter, Caleb Moureu.

  Ami woofed.

  “Well, of course he should think of me first,” she said. She loved that he did, in fact. “I’m right here. And I’m usually here for him.” She swallowed hard. “But this is different.”

  Ami whined.

  “He’s fine. You should have seen him. He looked totally in control. And he can Google stuff. Or call his friends. Or call the nurse hotline.” She straightened. “I wonder if he knows there’s a twenty-four-hour nurse hotline.” She started for the door but stopped with her hand on it. Ami was wagging his tail so hard at the thought of getting out and going across the landing that his whole body was shaking. “Of course he knows,” she told the dog. “He’s a firefighter. He’s a first responder. I’m certain he knows how to give a baby CPR and the signs of fever and infection. If the baby isn’t eating, he’ll know to take him to the ER.” She crossed the kitchen again,
this time pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.

  She still couldn’t get drunk. She definitely felt the need to stay sober. Which kind of pissed her off. But it was his first night with the baby. Maybe after a couple of nights, when he was settled in and she knew he wouldn’t need anything, she could pull that bottle back out.

  “Oh!” She spun toward the door. Ami started wagging again. “The car seat is in my car! What if he needs it to take the baby to the ER?”

  But again she stopped halfway to the door.

  She took a deep breath.

  “He’s not going to need to take the baby to the ER.”

  Ami scratched at the door.

  “He’ll call 9-1-1 if he really needs to,” she reasoned.

  Ami whined and looked over at her.

  “Or he’ll come get me. We’ll get in my car anyway. He won’t be able to handle the baby and the car and everything alone.”

  Ami finally gave up and lay down, his nose against the door, as if resigned to staying in but not willing to get any farther away from James than he had to.

  Harper stubbornly turned in the direction of her bedroom. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and headed for bed.

  But she only stood next to it.

  She’d probably hear James knock if he came over. He could pound on her door like a madman if he needed to. As he’d done earlier tonight.

  But in the end, she sighed, pulled her pillow off the bed, and went to the couch. She settled down, pulled her favorite throw blanket over her and patted the cushion next to her. “Come on, Ami.”

  The dog looked over at her, then seemingly turned up his nose, before putting his chin on his paws and facing the door again.

  She didn’t think Ami actually liked James more, but he didn’t have as many chances to sleep over there, so he usually spent James’s night off on the foot of James’s bed.

  But she wanted the dog with her tonight. She couldn’t say why exactly, but she thought it might be bitterness over the tiny person who was with him tonight because of the female person who had been with him in order to make that tiny person.

  James didn’t need to have the dog, too.

  Harper stared at the ceiling. He’d made a baby with another woman, and he wasn’t even sure who she was. Or rather, which one she was. That woman hadn’t felt close enough to him to come to him during the pregnancy or even actually with the child herself. She’d just left the baby on the landing.

  Who did that?

  And did Harper really want to be counted in a number so large that James had to really think hard about who this woman could even be? Would he be able to come up with more than a first name? Had he known her for more than one night? Was she from here or had she been a tourist? Was he going to have to deal with someone local who could, potentially, be around all the time? Or would he have to figure out something with someone long distance? Or would he even have a prayer of tracking her down at all? Even if she was local, if he only had a first name and a few hours of… impressions of her, it might be difficult finding her at all. Especially if she didn’t want to be found.

  A woman who left her baby on the doorstep of its father with nothing more than an unsigned note didn’t seem like someone who was interested in Mother’s Day brunches and parent-teacher conferences.

  Harper pressed her hand over her heart. The whole thing was so crazy. She’d been right inside this very apartment while that woman had climbed the steps and put that baby—her baby—in a basket outside James’s door for him to discover when he got home. Harper believed him when James said the baby probably hadn’t been there long. It was even possible the woman had hung around in the shadows downstairs to be sure that James kept him rather than calling the cops or taking him straight to a safe haven location.

  Harper swallowed hard. The woman could have taken the baby to James at the fire station. But she’d brought him here. She’d brought him to James specifically. With a note. So yes, she’d known who James was and had wanted the baby to be with him. Not just safe. Not just out of her hands. But with James.

  Harper forced herself to relax, breathe deep, and shut her eyes.

  This was all now, officially, not her problem. The baby wasn’t hers, and the guy who she’d thought could maybe, possibly, eventually, be hers a little bit, was now really off limits. So she might as well get some sleep so she could figure out how to share a dog with a guy she had an enormous, stupid crush on who now had an infant son and a whole lot of mess to figure out.

  On. His. Own.

  3

  Harper blinked and looked around.

  Why was she on the couch? And what was that noise?

  It was Ami. Scratching at the door.

  But why was the door right there?

  Oh, right, she was on the couch.

  Why was she on the couch?

  She reached for her phone on the coffee table and squinted at the time.

  Three a.m.

  Why was Ami asking to go out at three a.m.?

  Then it all came flooding back. Why she was on the couch, why Ami was out here in the living room, why she’d been dreaming about showing up for a parent-teacher conference dressed in her flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top that said I run on cuss words and caffeine.

  Neither of which was true. She tried to curtail her cursing, and when she did it, she did it in French. It sounded better that way. Everything sounded better in French. She also drank tea. On the rare occasion she had coffee, she doctored it with enough cream that she wasn’t sure it counted as coffee anymore. Yes, her morning tea had caffeine, but she switched to decaf after that first cup.

  So the shirt made no sense. Of course, that was only one thing in the dream that didn’t. The parent-teacher conference, for instance.

  What was…

  Ami gave a short bark and Harper frowned.

  The dog wanted James.

  Yeah, well, join the club.

  But now that she was awake it was impossible to ignore the fact that James was across the hall with a baby boy and that she was worried about them both and wondering how they were and feeling horribly guilty for leaving them alone and feeling jealous but also slightly possessive and more than slightly irritable about the whole thing.

  Yes, possessive. She’d been here. Helping him. Liking him. Taking care of his olives.

  Where had this other woman been?

  Sure, growing his baby. But not here.

  Harper was trying very hard not to judge the woman for leaving the baby. She didn’t know this woman’s situation or motives or emotional state. For all she knew, this was the most selfless thing she could have done for her child and possibly the hardest thing she’d ever do in her life.

  But the fact remained that Harper had more of a relationship with James than that woman did. In spite of the little life they’d accidentally made together, which meant that Harper did have a sort of right to be over there. If not for the baby, then for James.

  It all sounded perfectly reasonable in her head as she pushed up from the couch and went to slip her feet into her flip-flops.

  She couldn’t blame wine for her sudden one-eighty on this. But it was three a.m. No one was totally rational at three a.m. She could blame that if needed.

  Ami was about to burst into happy bubbles of joy, she was certain, as she unchained the door and opened it. She peeked out. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see. Or afraid of seeing. But one never really knew what might be waiting on that landing.

  It was clear and quiet. She cocked her head but could hear nothing from James’s apartment, and there were no lights shining from his windows.

  She grabbed her key to his apartment from the porcelain bowl on the table by the door and crept across the landing and put her ear to his door. Ami gave a short bark.

  “Quiet,” she hissed, pointing her finger at the dog.

  He minded, but his tongue was hanging out, his tail going a mile a minute, and she knew that if she loitered for too long
outside the door, the dog would lose his patience.

  “Okay, but you have to be quiet,” she told him. She inserted the key and let them in, opening the door slowly.

  The apartment was dark and quiet.

  That was probably a good sign. No crying babies. No harried men.

  Harper rolled her eyes. Of course James would be good even with babies. He might not have known a ficus from an olive tree, but once he’d learned, he’d been great with the tree. And Henry. And Courtney. And Ami. And her.

  Harper had to admit that he’d been really good with her, too. He’d teased and flirted. He’d flaunted his firefighting, He’d shown off his musical talents. But it had always been with a touch of humor and good-natured confidence. He’d never pushed. Never been inappropriate. Never overstayed his welcome at her apartment. Not that there had ever been a time when she’d been fully ready for him to leave.

  But it really didn’t surprise her to find that in a few hours’ time, he was already handling the dad thing with ease.

  Was there anything the guy wasn’t good at?

  The question brought to mind a number of things that she’d definitely wondered about over the past few months that involved things like mouths and hands and naked bodies and slippery sheets. Which was not at all appropriate considering she was here to check on him and his infant son.

  She tiptoed to the bedroom. The door wasn’t shut, and she found herself in the doorway staring.

  James was stretched out on top of the mattress, the sheet over one leg. He was wearing only boxer briefs. And a baby.

  The baby was on his chest. Sleeping soundly.

  James had an arm slung up over his head, the other cradled the baby’s diapered butt.

  Harper wasn’t sure she’d ever been more stunned to be attracted to someone.

  Truly, without the baby, this was the sexiest scene she’d ever walked in on. The briefs did nothing to hide a thing about James's big, hard body. They molded to his hips, thighs, and cock lovingly. Even in sleep, and presumably unaroused, the man had so many impressive inches, she paused a moment just to take it all in. All of it. From the sexily mussed dark hair to the scruff on his jaw to the wide chest to the hard abs to all of that below, Harper was thrilled that he was asleep, and she could just look her fill.