He sighed. "I didn't name him. His mother did." He said nothing else, and she continued to look at him expectantly. "We can order furniture online and have it delivered, or we can take my pick-up truck into Dalton now and shop for what you need."
She looked down at the baby in her arms. "Do you have a car seat for him yet?" When he continued to stare at her as if she'd grown two heads, she sighed. "No car seat. Is there someone who can watch the baby while we go on this excursion and get him what he needs?"
Barrett shrugged. "I'm sure Archer will do it if he's sleeping when we leave. How long will it take us?"
"How am I supposed to know that? How far are we from the nearest town?"
"It's about a ten minute drive into Dalton."
Ashley blinked at him. "You do realize there are names in the world other than Dalton, right?"
"I am aware."
She closed her eyes and counted to ten, unsure why this man put her back up so quickly. "Fine. I think we'd be gone about three hours."
Barrett strode into the hall, yelling for Archer. Two men walked toward them. One looked almost identical to Barrett, but he didn't have a spit-up stain on his shoulder. As soon as she saw him, it all clicked in Ashley's mind.
Holy moly. She was living with the Dalton triplets her aunt had been horrified by just a couple of days before. What had Aunt Lachele called them? Bad boys who only thought with what was in their pants? That was it. She leaned against the wall as the brothers talked. What was she going to do? She'd already fallen in love with little Dalton, although she hated his name. She couldn't just go flying back to New York. She'd committed for a month. Oh, but her aunt was going to kill her if she stayed.
"You two have to watch the baby while I take little miss priss into town to shop for all things baby."
The third brother, the one Ashley had yet to meet backed away, shaking his head. "No way. Can't do it."
The other, whose name she hadn't caught, sighed. "I'll watch the little poop factory." He reached his hands out toward Ashley to take the baby, and Ashley took a step back without thinking. She forced herself to stop. He was the baby's uncle. Just because he left a trail of broken hearts everywhere he went didn't mean she had to fall for him. She wasn't even attracted to the man.
The baby's father was a different story. As mad as she was, she felt her heart beating faster as he took the baby from her and handed him to his brother. "This is my brother, Archer, but you've already met him. The dirty rotten coward who ran away is Cage. We all live here together, but we each have our own wing."
Ashley nodded. She was going to live with the three men her aunt had warned her about just two days before. Lord have mercy.
Chapter Two
The trip into Dalton was made mostly in silence. Ashley knew she should be asking about her job, and exactly what her duties would be, but she was too busy crowding against the door to do it. She didn't want to get too close to the man.
Dalton wasn't exactly a small town, but it wasn't big either. "We just got a Wal-Mart in town. Can we find what we need there?" Barrett asked.
Ashley grinned. She'd never again be able to hear the word 'Wal-Mart' without thinking of her crazy aunt. "Should be able to."
"I don't bite, you know." He frowned at her, wondering why she was suddenly acting afraid of him.
She shrugged. "I never said you did. I just didn't expect to be living with a single father."
Barrett laughed. "We won't be 'living' together. You'll be living across the hall with my son. Don't worry. I've yet to have to rape a woman." She certainly thought highly of herself if she was that afraid he was going to molest her or something.
Ashley turned to look out the window, refusing to even look at him. They finished the drive in silence, and he parked off to the side of the store. Before she got out, she looked at him. "What's my budget?"
He shrugged. "Get what the kid needs. I'm not worried about the cost."
She nodded and opened her door, sliding to the ground. "Fine."
She grabbed a cart as they walked in and was thankful to see him do the same. She hurried back to the baby section, thankful all of the chain's stores were laid out similarly. She walked up and down every aisle, carefully choosing the things she thought were of the best quality. "Does he need clothes?"
The man rubbed the back of his neck, looking slightly sheepish. "We have one outfit for him, one bottle, and a small can of powder stuff that we mix with water. And a few diapers."
"How much does he weigh?" she asked, looking at a display of diapers.
"I have no idea." Barrett knew nothing about the child. He'd only had him for thirty six hours.
"How old is he?" That might help her guess his weight.
Barrett shrugged. "His birth certificate said April sixth and it's the eighteenth, so twelve days, I guess?"
Ashley just blinked, but asked nothing else. She picked a pack of newborn diapers and some size ones. One of them would surely fit the baby. As she made her way through the store, she chose everything from a baby bathtub to a bassinet. She wanted a higher quality for his crib than they could find at Wal-Mart, but she picked out a changing table.
By the time they started on clothes, she knew she'd picked out thousands of dollars worth of baby items. Barrett frowned at the outfit in her hands. "I don't like that. He'll look like a girl in it."
"It's a sleeper," she protested. "Who's going to see him?"
He shrugged. "Don't care. I'm not buying it." As the baby's possible father, he should get a say in what the kid wore. "What about those plug things you shove in their mouths to shut them up?"
"Pacifiers?" She frowned at him. "I don't like them, because parents do use them as plugs to shut their kids up.
He shrugged. "You'll be spending more time with him than I will anyway. You decide."
She just nodded.
Thirty minutes later they left the store, and he groaned. "I can't believe we just spent fifteen-hundred dollars on something that does nothing but eat, sleep, and pee all over me."
"He won't pee on you as much with the proper sized diaper," she said. She'd done her best to not look at the supermarket tabloids while they were in line. She did see Barrett's face looking at her with the words, "Barrett's Bastard Baby" over his head.
Barrett made a face. "I guess." He handed her his keys. "Start the car to get the AC going while I unload all this crap."
"Your son needs it all, Mr. Dalton."
He rolled his eyes. "Call me Barrett. There are too many Mr. Daltons around, and we don't need to get confusing."
She nodded, walking over and unlocking the front of the truck, sliding across the seat to put the key in the ignition and start the vehicle. She sat waiting for him to join her, feeling a little better about him now that he'd gotten what the baby needed with only a little grumbling.
He climbed in the car beside her, the sweat clinging to the curls at the nape of his neck. She wanted to reach over and fluff his hair, just a bit. Why was she so darned attracted to the man? Oh, Aunt Lachele was not going to be happy with her. And when her aunt told her daddy, a deacon in their church in Montana, he was going to come unglued. How was she supposed to be a good girl spending as much time as she'd have to with such a sexy man?
"Thank you for buying the baby everything he needed," she said. "It'll make taking care of him much easier."
Barrett shrugged. "If I'm keeping him, I need to treat him right."
Ashley folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. "He's your son! Of course, you're keeping him."
"He might be. I have no idea really." He shrugged. "His mother sure put my name on his birth certificate, and then she dumped him on my porch Sunday night. Whether he's really mine will require blood tests to find out."
"But you're keeping him? You're not checking first?" Her eyes narrowed. That sounded terribly altruistic for a man who was a known womanizer.
"Doesn't matter if he's mine or not. He's got too many strikes against him for
me to let him just disappear into the system." He turned into the driveway of the Dalton Ranch. "I'll probably check eventually, but for all intents and purposes, he's mine."
As soon as Barrett stopped the car, the door opened and Archer hurried out, the baby in his arms. "He won't stop crying!" He handed Ashley the baby and looked at her expectantly.
"When did you last feed him?" she asked, cradling the baby against her breast and raising her voice so she could be heard over his wails.
"Was I supposed to feed him?"
Ashley closed her eyes and counted to ten. She didn't know where his new bottles were, so she slipped into the house and went back to the wing Barrett said was his. While she walked, she talked softly to the baby. "I'm going to find you some formula, and we're going to fill your tummy. Silly men don't know that babies eat every three hours, do they? We'll teach them how to treat you right, and until they have it down, I promise not to leave you again. Got that? You're stuck with me until they figure out how to take care of you. Yes, you are." She kept up her soothing monologue as she found the kitchen and prepared a bottle, and the baby stopped fussing so hard to listen. Within minutes she had his bottle fixed and she was sitting in the rocker in her room, feeding him.
As she fed him, she sang softly to him, automatically singing Puff the Magic Dragon, which her mother had always sung to her when she was small. She took a break half way through the bottle and put him to her shoulder to burp him. "What a good boy," she said, settling him back in the crook of her arm as she let him finish the bottle before burping him again.
When he was finished, she sang to him, her voice rising and falling as she went through lullaby after lullaby. She knew she didn't have the best singing voice in the world, but she also knew sweet little Baby Dalton wouldn't care a bit. He would just be happy that she was singing to him.
They'd been home for close to an hour when he finally fell asleep in her arms. He'd worked himself up into such a fit getting so hungry, that she had a hard time calming him enough for him to nap.
She put him against her shoulder and walked through the bathroom to his room, stopping short as she saw three men with identical broad shoulders and no shirts on sitting on the floor in the baby's room, putting furniture together. She watched them for a minute, her eyes drinking in the sight.
Fanning her face with her hand, she took the baby to her bed instead. She laid him gently on his back in the middle of the bed before she dug through her purse for her phone. Laying beside him to keep him safe, she called her aunt.
"Hey, Aunt Lachele. Baby's sleeping, so I have to keep my voice down."
"Where'd you end up, girl? Are you safe? What's the family like?" The questions were rapid fire and had Ashley laughing.
"I'm in Dalton, Texas. Yes, I'm safe." She bit her lip before answering the last question. "I'm a nanny for Barrett Dalton's son."
"Barrett Dalton's son? Wait. One of those wild Dalton boys? Each one of those boys is sex on a stick, girl! You can't stay there! I'll send you a plane ticket. You need to get out now!"
"I can't, Aunt Lachele. I committed to staying for a whole month." She traced Baby Dalton's cheek. "Besides, I've already fallen in love with the baby, and these men are clueless. I can't leave him alone with them."
"Where are you staying then? And don't tell me you're staying at the Dalton Ranch, because so help me, girl..." Aunt Lachele's voice was threatening, and Ashley closed her eyes.
"I'm staying at the Dalton Ranch. But it's not like you think! I have a little suite of rooms I share with the baby. And there's a lock on my door. I checked. I'll be fine."
Barrett stood outside Ashley's open door, seeing her lying on the bed with Baby Dalton, his hand poised to knock when he heard her words. He saw red. Were they really back to her thinking he was some kind of rapist? He wasn't even interested in her!
He shook his head at his words, knowing he was lying to himself. Her jeans fit her bottom like a second skin. Yeah, he was interested, but he wasn't going to do anything about it. She was there to take care of his son.
He turned and walked away instead of listening to the rest of her conversation. Obviously she wasn't about to trust him.
Ashley continued her conversation with her aunt, oblivious to Barrett. "The baby's so sweet. I wish you could see him."
Aunt Lachele sighed, obviously done arguing for a the moment. "What's his name?"
"Dalton."
"Well, of course it his. His daddy's a Dalton. What's his first name?"
"Dalton." Ashley waited for her aunt to get angry as she had, but instead she heard her cackling hysterically.
"You have got to be kidding me! That's a new low even for those boys. Dalton Dalton? What is wrong with people?" She was still hooting with laughter five minutes later when Ashley hung up the phone.
She pressed a kiss to the sweet baby's cheek. "You're going to have to grow up strong, Baby Dalton, because your name is a fighting name. They probably should have just named you 'Sue.'"
She slipped her arm around him and rolled to her side, not wanting to risk him getting hurt. She closed her eyes. She'd been up before it was light out to catch a plane out of JFK airport. Just a short nap would be enough. She was obviously going to need her strength. This job was a lot more than she'd realized when she'd agreed to take it.
*****
Ashley woke up slowly, as she always did. Her eyes widened as she saw the baby staring at her. "Well, hello, Baby Dalton," she said softly, rolling from bed and leaning over to pick him up. "Do you think your daddy and your uncles have gotten your room put together yet?"
She walked to the nursery to check on the men's progress. The bassinet she'd chosen was put together and pushed up against one wall. The changing table dresser combination was against another. The few decorations she'd picked out for the walls were hanging. How had they done so much work without waking her? Her door had been standing open the whole time.
She left her room and went into the hallway, searching for Barrett. She was getting hungry, and she didn't know if she was expected to cook for both of them, or how that was going to work. She should have asked earlier.
She heard his voice coming from his bedroom, so she pushed the door which wasn't closed all the way. He was lying on his back on his bed, still shirtless, talking on his phone. "You've got to be kidding me. I'm away for two days and the whole department goes to pot? We can't have another scandal on our hands." He listened for a moment. "I think we're going to have to call in a PR person. It was bad enough before Baby Dalton, but he's just added to it. I don't want my son raised in a family that's looked down on by the rest of Texas."
He looked up and saw Ashley standing at his door, his eyes narrowing. "Research a good PR firm. I'll talk to you about it in the morning." He swung his legs out of bed and stood. "Finish your nap?"
She flushed, embarrassed that he'd seen her sleeping. "Sorry. I couldn't leave the baby there, and his bed wasn't ready yet."
Barrett shrugged. "No skin off my nose. As long as the kid is taken care of, you're doing your job." His voice was colder than it had been.
"I'll take good care of him," she said, looking anywhere but at his naked chest. "Do you want me to fix dinner? I'm hungry, and we haven't talked about how that's going to work."
"Whatever you want to do. I think I'm going to run through Whataburger and get a burger. You can do whatever you want."
"Barrett?" she asked, her voice soft. "Did I do something to offend you?" She knew she hadn't been exactly polite, but she couldn't figure out anything new she'd done to make him angry.
He shook his head. "No, I'm just not sure why you're in here bothering me. Do your job."
Ashley saw red. She took a couple of steps closer to him and poked him in the chest with her free hand. "I came in here to offer to cook for you. I don't know if I'm allowed to just fix whatever I want in the kitchen or if I need to provide my own food, because we haven't discussed it yet. I don't know what your problem is, but I know you're
not going to be allowed to take it out on me."
He caught the hand poking his chest in his own. "Don't touch me! You're so afraid I'm going to rape you that you have to make sure there's a lock on your door, and then you come into my bedroom and touch me? I don't think so!"
Ashley blushed. "My aunt was all freaked out that it was you three I going to be staying with in Texas. She thinks you guys are just one step up from male strippers."
"Yeah? And what do you think?"
Ashley shrugged. "I think I don't know you, but you have horrible reputations. You do seem to care about the baby, though, and that moves you up one notch in my brain."
"Does it now?" He took a step closer to her, leaning over her. "And what would you do if I kissed you?" He didn't know where the words had come from, but now that he'd brought it up, it sounded like a fine idea. He'd kiss her and show her he could walk away. Then she'd know he wasn't some sort of sex offender.
She glared at him. "Is that meant to be a threat? What is wrong with you?" The man acted like he'd never seen a woman before, but if there was even a small chance the baby in her arms was his, then he'd certainly done a lot more than look at one.
"What's wrong with me? I've got a little priss for a nanny who thinks she's better than me." He leaned even closer. "You're not better than me, you know. You're just a little girl who doesn't know how to behave around men, so you're scared."
"Scared? I'm not scared!" Her blue eyes met his brown, and she stared right into them, feeling like she'd just received a blow to her stomach. Oh, Aunt Lachele was right about this one. He was sex on a stick.
He grabbed her by the back of her neck, leaning down to kiss her. He'd never in his life kissed a woman in anger, but he didn't recall ever being so mad at a woman either. Not even MaryBeth, who had tried to extort money from him.
As soon as his lips touched hers, they went soft, seeming to sip at hers. His tongue gently stroked her lips, and she parted them, allowing his tongue inside to stroke against hers. She'd been kissed before, but not often, and never like this. She felt it all the way in her toes. Glory be, she wanted to keep kissing him forever.
The Nanny (The Fabulous Dalton Boys Book 1) Page 2