by Lilian Darcy
“Yes. But stay.”
“Of course I’m staying.” Right there, he meant. He didn’t move from beside the tub, just rested his forearms on the cold white porcelain and watched.
Watched, and belonged.
Ohh.
There were no words for it. DJ’s little body. The warmth. The soft lapping of the water. The slipperiness. The tenderness. The way the water helped with Jodie’s imperfect coordination and control.
“Can I…play with her, Dev?”
“Play with her?”
“Bob her around, float her from side to side. I mean, she’s never been in a tub this big, has she?”
“Of course play with her.” He was still watching closely, his hair getting damp with steam from the tub, his shirt wet from the splash of the baby’s legs. “As long as the water doesn’t get into her mouth.”
So they bobbed around and floated from side to side, her little legs making trails in the foam. The foam began to melt away, which was good because then Jodie didn’t worry so much about it getting in the baby’s mouth and eyes, as Dev had warned.
“Oh, you’re beautiful,” she crooned. “You’re so beautiful.”
And something shifted and changed inside her. She let go of the doubt and fear and questions because the moment was too huge and didn’t leave any room for those things. She slid DJ a little higher and those pink starfish hands grabbed at Jodie’s skin and suddenly it came.
A smile.
A big, sweet, soft-lipped, toothless, beaming baby smile.
“Ohh,” she crooned. “You’re smiling. Oh, you darling girl! Why are you smiling? Mom says you never smile in the bath.”
“Because you’re right in there with her,” Dev said, “and you’re smiling right at her.”
“But I’ve tried that before and it’s never worked. She’s never ever smiled at me till now. Oh, baby girl!” She just couldn’t take her eyes away.
“Tried it.” He slid closer, along the side of the tub. “That was the difference. Now you’re not trying, you’re not thinking about it, you’re just smiling.”
“Oh. Oh.”
No words. Just kisses. On DJ’s tender shoulders, her forehead, her wet baby hair, her chubby cheeks. Jodie cradled her against her shoulder and almost swam with her, floating around the generous-size spa tub, bobbing and bouncing DJ through the water.
The sense of rightness coursed through her with as much warmth and vitality as the blood in her veins. Oh, my baby girl, oh, my sweet precious angel. It was a part of her, this new feeling. It wasn’t like the short-lived flicker of feeling that had come two days ago at Oakbank. That had only been a glimpse. This was real and powerful and bone-deep, an utter, beloved certainty.
The water was getting too cool. Dev turned on the faucet and a blast of warmth jetted in, bringing the temperature back up. They stayed in there until Jodie and DJ were both wrinkle-skinned and even then, as she lifted the baby to pass her to Dev, she didn’t want to let her go.
“You can have her for now,” she warned him, making it a tease so that she didn’t cry instead. “But watch out, because I want her back as soon as I’m out of here.” It had been so precious and wonderful. She felt as if she’d recaptured something she hadn’t known until today had been lost.
And it would last, this time. She believed it. Knew it. Knew that the overwhelming sensation of love had been real and true and deep enough not to ebb or fade. It was what Dev had. It changed everything.
“Careful, she’s so slippery,” she told Dev, and there was a wet, drippy tangle of arms and movements as he bent down to take her.
“I’ve got her,” he said gruffly. “I know she’s slippery. It’s fine.” He captured her in the big, fluffy towel and dressed her in a fresh outfit—lilac, this time—right there on the glass vanity while Jodie lolled in the water and watched him with their daughter. When she was dressed, he stepped into the next room and laid her on the bed. Jodie heard the sound of pillows being plumped and settled to keep her safely in place. “That’s the way,” he sang to her. “Not going anywhere like that, are you, sweetheart angel?”
DJ cooed at him.
“Now let me pass you a towel,” he said, back in the bathroom. “Do you need help getting up?”
“No, there’s enough to hold on to.” But she slipped at her first try and slid back into the tub, her feet squeaking across the porcelain. The water churned. She gritted her teeth. Why was it so hard? How did such a clumsy episode follow so quickly from some of the most precious moments of her life?
I won’t let the clumsiness spoil what I feel, she vowed, and made another effort, pulling herself from the water and into the towel Dev had waiting for her. I couldn’t let it spoil that, because it was too strong.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“Like a miracle. Oh, Dev, I can’t tell you…I can’t describe it. I can’t even think about the difference it’s already made.”
“Good. Good. I’m so glad.”
She thought he was going to kiss her. She was sure of it, after the way they’d made love so recently, after the emotion unleashed by her holding DJ in the bath. His eyes had pooled with glinting darkness, half-shielded by a sweep of lashes, his mouth was so soft, his lips had parted and he was looking at her. She swayed closer, and her hands loosened on the towel. It would drop to the floor in another moment, and she didn’t care.
As long as Dev kissed her.
But it didn’t happen.
He took a long, harsh breath and stepped back, pressing his lips together, turning his head. “Better not leave DJ on the bed for long,” he said. “I’ll put her on the floor, with her baby gym. Time to think about dinner, too. It’s been a big day.”
“A great day.”
“Yes.” He left, picking up the baby on his way out.
Wrapped in the towel in the steaming bathroom, Jodie felt abandoned and hated the ebbing of that glorious feeling of love and relief that had made her so complete and so happy just moments ago.
The change in his mood was as stark and apparent as the sun vanishing behind a dark cloud. The air felt colder. The light seemed different. It no longer streamed like gold through the thick greenery as it had when she’d first climbed into the bath. The sun had almost set, and the bath water had taken on a greenish tinge from the sachet of bath salts Dev had poured in.
There was no more foam, Jodie realized. She and DJ had stayed in the bath for so long that it had gradually disappeared, and she’d been so absorbed in the baby that she hadn’t noticed.
Dev would have seen everything. Not just the shape of her body lying there, but the awkwardness of it in movement, and somehow this left her more naked and vulnerable than she’d been the other night when they’d made love, or just now on the couch, because both those times it had been dark, or at least dim, and their need for each other had wrapped both of them in a kind of protective blanket. She’d felt a lot of things, but she hadn’t felt exposed.
Now, she did, because Dev’s mood had changed so suddenly, it seemed, and this had to be the reason why.
Jodie took a long time to reappear. DJ had grown bored on her blanket, even with the baby gym positioned above her. There was only so much rattle-whacking a four-month-old could tolerate, apparently. Dev picked her up and propped her on his hip while he attempted to put oven fries on a baking tray, toss a salad and grill steaks with one hand.
He’d cooked that way before.
“Wouldn’t put you in your bassinet even if I thought you’d stay happy there, would I, baby girl?” he murmured to her, heart lurching in his chest at the stark thought of losing her.
Not losing her.
He couldn’t lose her.
Jodie wasn’t like that. No matter how strongly her bond with the baby kicked in, today and in the future, she wouldn’t punish him with it, would she?
Not deliberately. She surely wasn’t like that.
But the punishment could happen anyway, because he wanted too much. He’d been
kidding himself so stupidly right up until tonight, thinking through all these plans about shared custody and generous access, about making it work even when he was in New York or Europe, not understanding that the bond he had with DJ was so much stronger because the baby hadn’t had the chance to build a bond with her mom.
Just now, in the bath, when they’d smiled at each other, gotten lost in each other for minutes on end, forgotten about him so completely, both of them, and then Jodie had seemed so glowing and different after she stepped out of the tub, so much freer and more full of life, he’d seen it in the look on her face, felt it in the way her body moved.
The shutting out.
Like the slamming of a prison door, with himself on one side and Jodie and DJ on the other.
He felt sick at himself, a miserable wreck of selfishness and blindness and jealousy. Did he want to see Jodie go on floundering the way she had been, purely so that she would leave the best of the parenting to him? That was horrible. He was appalled about it.
But he felt it anyway, this sense that he was shut out and that it was a conspiracy coming from both of them.
He didn’t understand why it had such a grip on him or what it meant.
Couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
Here she was, at last. She was wearing a pair of stretchy cream long johns and a flowery camisole top—amongst the more useful contents of her underwear drawer, he guessed—and she was wrapped in the gypsy shawl her sister had given her, that he’d laid on the bed. Strangely enough, the outfit almost worked. “Cold?” he asked, pushing his dark, unwanted feelings aside.
“From the bath.”
“Right. DJ felt cool, too. You’ll both warm up soon.”
“Mmm.”
“Dinner’s nearly on the table.”
“Thank you.”
“DJ won’t last much longer. We can eat, then I’ll put her in her sleep suit and give her her last bottle and she’ll go down. Can usually count on a good eight hours after that. With luck it’ll be getting light before she wakes up. That’s mostly how it works with her now.” He sounded as if he were giving a lecture, and knew it came from his need to assert his own role.
I’m the one who took her home from the hospital. I’m the one who saw the sonogram and felt her move in your belly, when you knew nothing about it.
He’d told Jodie all that stuff himself, just a few hours ago, and it had changed everything, along with DJ’s smile and Jodie’s tearful smile back, and now he wanted Jodie’s glow to fade? He was despicable.
Despicable, and lost.
The steaks were almost done. She helped him serve up and they ate without saying a lot. He talked about what they might do tomorrow—go visit the nearby lake, go back to the store to fill more of those gaps in her dad’s packing—but it was all on the surface and they both knew something was wrong.
“May I feed her and put her to bed?” Jodie asked, after she’d finished eating. “Would you mind?”
“Mind? You’re the mom,” he said stiffly. “And you’ve missed out on a lot. You don’t have to ask.”
“No. Right. I guess I don’t. Thank you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“We can’t go on thanking each other for the most mundane childcare tasks. How’s that going to work?”
“It’s not, I guess, but— Yeah, okay, I won’t keep thanking you.”
“Let me know if you need any help.”
“I will.”
He was worse than Elin and Barb. He left the rest of the dinner mess in the kitchen and hovered around in the open-plan living area, ears almost aching from the effort of listening. He could hear her talking to DJ as she changed the baby’s diaper, not the same way that he talked to her, but right, all the same, not forced or self-conscious, and the thick knot of incomprehensible jealousy tightened inside him.
Chapter Thirteen
“Yes, I’m fine,” Jodie said into her cell phone. “I keep telling you, Mom… No, I’m not going to keep it switched on, from now on. I’ll call you once a day to tell you I’m fine, and that’s it.”
She stood out on the deck, with her left hand pressed awkwardly against her ear to block out distracting sounds, and she had her back to Dev, even though he could hear her quite clearly. Was she trying to block him out, also?
She listened some more, then said to her mother, “Well, we’ve been out to dinner, we’ve explored the woods, we’ve been shopping to replace all the things Dad forgot to pack for me, we’ve been to the lake and had a picnic, soaked up the sun, cooked a barbecue here on the deck…” She listened again. “Coming home? Dev told them a week when he made the reservation.” She turned and looked at him. “We’ve only been here three nights.”
Was that a question in her face? Did she want to leave sooner?
His gut twisted. Maybe for her, the purpose had been achieved, there was no more point to this, and she wanted to go home. He wouldn’t blame her. He hadn’t been the best company since that magical session between Jodie and DJ in the bath. Hell, he was trying!
But he was trying to protect himself at the same time. He was floundering and she had to know something was wrong. “It’s up to you,” he murmured. “If you want to leave sooner…”
“Only if you do,” she answered quietly, with her hand over the phone. Her eyes had narrowed, intent on his response.
“I don’t.”
“Good.” She turned her attention once more to her mother. “I’ll call again tomorrow.” She listened. “Mom, you don’t need to know the exact details on how many exercises I’m doing, okay?” Another pause. “Listen, I’m ending the call now. I’m not hanging up on you or anything, but there’s nothing more we need to say.” She thumbed the phone off and put it down on the outdoor table.
“Only if you do,” she repeated deliberately, fixing Dev with those blue eyes.
“I don’t,” he repeated back.
“So what’s wrong?” She crossed the space between them and tried to touch him, but he eased away, as he’d been doing since Saturday night. He didn’t trust himself, close to her, and there was this massive sense of risk and vulnerability crashing through him that he didn’t understand.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just giving us both some space.”
Her expression turned fierce and she stuck out her jaw. “Was that a one-off, on the couch, then? A two-off, I guess I should say, counting the other night in Deer Pond Park coming home from the restaurant. Be honest. Tell me up front.”
“Up front…”
“It’s not so hard, is it? You were pretty good at it, last year, the up-front stuff. You said straight out that you weren’t in the market for anything long-term and I appreciated your honesty.”
Maybe if I knew the answer, it wouldn’t be hard. Out loud, he told her, “Just…not a good idea.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that.”
“Twice. I’ve said it twice.”
“Once for each time. If we go for a third, I’ll let you say it again.” She put a hand on her hip, jutted her chin in a defiant grin and struck a sassy pose that he knew ran only skin-deep.
“Stop…” he almost begged.
Stop being so brave. Stop asking for answers I don’t have. “Oh, me? I should stop?” She glared at him.
“No, okay, you’re right. That’s not fair. It’s just… This—coming here—is about you and DJ, isn’t it, not about you and me? I don’t want anything to get in the way of that. What you’re finding together. It’s so great. It’s beautiful to see.”
“Yes, it is.” A smile lit up her face, a new kind of smile. “Thank you for making it happen.”
“That’s her now, waking up.”
“Oh, it is? Yes, I can hear her. Yes.”
Three days ago, he would have had to urge her, blackmail her, almost, into going to her baby. Now she was already on the way, eager and awkward, calling out as she went. “I hear you, baby girl. I’m coming.”
&n
bsp; It was exactly what he wanted, better than he could have hoped, and she wasn’t using it to hurt him, she was still giving him all the time he could want with his baby girl, so why was it killing him like this? What was he so afraid of?
He needed action and answers, not this pointless self-questioning.
Jodie had left her cell phone on the table. His was in his pocket, switched off just as hers had been. He took it out. It felt cool and compact in his hand, a familiar symbol of certainty and control.
Touching the screen, he had his office in New York on the line within seconds, knowing he was kidding himself about what this would achieve, even while he heard his assistant’s voice. “Catch me up, Angie,” he told her. “Has there been any news from London on the consultancy?”
“Can you believe I changed your diaper and your outfit all by myself?” Jodie cooed to DJ. “Your daddy will be so proud.”
I’m lying to her. Again.
He wouldn’t be proud, he would be uncomfortable and reluctant, and if she told him, “I changed her all by myself,” he would say all the right things, but underneath there would be this distance. “Space” he’d called it, just now.
It wasn’t space.
It was withdrawal, shutting down.
And she got it.
Yeah, don’t worry, she got it completely, even though he hadn’t spelled it out.
Mission accomplished, as far as he was concerned. He’d taken her and DJ away from Mom and Lisa and Elin in order to strengthen their bond and deepen her love, and it had worked better than either of them could have hoped. She loved her baby girl, her Dani Jane, in a way she hadn’t imagined possible just a few days ago, with none of that thick, ugly layer of self-doubt and fear and unfamiliarity that had held her back.
Which meant that now Dev was free.
He loved his daughter, and he never would have abandoned her to the distance of her mother and the overinvolvement of her Palmer grandmother and aunts, but now that Jodie had her bonding in place, he was free. He could put this “family” thing he talked about onto the same footing as so many other kids had—live with the mom, see the dad occasionally for visits and weekends, while the parents maintained a cordial relationship if the kid was lucky.