by Zoe Chant
“Here, I think this is yours.” He handed Emily up to Leah.
“I think you’re right.” Emily was starting a full-on cry now, and Leah looked down at her. “You’re all done, honey. Everything’s okay.” Because apparently they had a diaper-changing, lost-family-rescuing genuine hero on their hands.
“Guess I didn’t quite stick the landing.” Jeff stood up, holding the taped-up used diaper, with a rueful expression on his face.
“You did great.” Leah bounced Emily on her lap, looking up at him. She practically had to crane her neck, he was so tall. “She’s got no reason to complain, do you, sweetheart?”
Maybe it was time to reassess some of her assumptions about men and babies. Although if Jeff had a lot of nieces and nephews, it made sense that he might’ve been stuck with diaper duty now and then. Rob had been an only child, and had never even held a baby before Emily was born.
He hadn’t believed Leah at first when she told him she was pregnant. That had probably been a red flag, too.
And, of course, he hadn’t paid a dime of child support. She hadn’t seen him once since the night he disappeared without even leaving her a note.
But none of that was important anymore. Leah breathed deeply, turning her attention to her daughter, and the present, instead of the useless past.
Jeff had gone to get rid of the used diaper, and by the time he got back, the kettle on the fire was starting to hiss, so he turned his attention to that. There was a whole process with a hand towel to keep him from burning his hand, finding a bowl in the cabinets, and testing the water and adding more cold water to keep it from being too hot.
Leah had her hands full with Emily, who had decided she wasn’t happy with the situation and was really crying now. “Shhh, hey, shhh,” Leah soothed, keeping one eye on Jeff. He didn’t look irritated at the noise, though; he just kept moving smoothly through setting up the water for her feet.
He came over with the bowl, setting it down on the floor. “You’ll need to roll up your cuffs for this.”
Emily picked that moment to try and fling herself off the couch, and Leah grabbed for her and pulled her back. “No, sweetheart, you can’t go exploring, I can’t come with you and there’s a fire literally six feet away.”
“I can take her,” Jeff offered, “or if you want to keep her for now, I could just roll up your cuffs for you, if you’re comfortable with that.”
Oh, God, when was the last time she’d shaved her legs?
It doesn’t matter, Leah, the man’s trying to treat you for frostbite, not get into your pants!
“That’s fine.” She kept her voice steady with an effort. “I’ve got my hands full up here.”
And she definitely did—she had to deal with a wiggly, unhappy Emily while Jeff knelt down in front of her.
She felt his fingers on her ankles after a moment, and she had to focus hard on keeping Emily under control to distract herself from the warm, rough feel of his hands. He had callouses on his fingertips, and the touch made her shiver.
At least until something else took her attention away. "No," she told Emily. "Mama's hair is not a toy. Ow!" The yank made her eyes water, and she tugged her hair away from the baby, gathering it over the opposite shoulder.
Jeff chuckled from somewhere to the south of her vision. "Hair's a classic."
He was rolling her cuffs up slowly, his fingers traveling up her ankles to her calves, sending tingles of sensation up her legs to center between her thighs. She shifted awkwardly, trying not to betray how his hands were making her feel.
She hadn't had a man touch her like this since...well, ever. Rob had never touched her like this. Either this delicately, or just to help her out. And Rob would definitely have made a suggestive comment or two by now, no matter which woman he was doing it to.
"I keep meaning to get my hair cut so that it'll stop being such an easy target," Leah said to distract herself from her thoughts.
Jeff sat back on his heels, so they could see each other again. His eyes traced the fall of her hair over her shoulder to where it rested on her breast. "That'd be a shame, it's really pretty."
Leah full-on blushed. She could feel her face turning tomato-red. Her nose tingled and stung a little, the tip of it still warming up from the cold.
Her hair was long and curly, and a complete pain to deal with. Back before she'd had Emily, she'd used to straighten it to keep it under control, but once the baby came, she just hadn't had the time anymore.
The silence stretched out. Leah was scrambling for something to say when Emily yanked at her shirt and made a demanding noise.
She knew what that meant. "Um," she said, trying to figure out how she was going to navigate this. Diapers were one thing...
"Let's get your feet into this," Jeff said hastily, looking down again. "Just lift them up for a second..."
Leah lifted her knees high, feeling a little silly as she tipped back into the couch cushions. Emily was distracted for a second by the sudden collapse of her lap, at least.
"Okay, now lower them slowly. It's going to sting a little."
Leah's breath hissed between her teeth as she lowered her feet into the water. It felt like burning needles were attacking her skin. "Are you sure this is good for frostbite?" she asked between gritted teeth. "That's more than a little sting."
"Sorry, I should've phrased it differently. It'll sting a lot. And yes, this is definitely the right thing to do—trust me, I have a lot of experience with exactly this type of first aid. Glacier National Park sees a lot of cold hikers, so the rangers have to be prepared to deal with any kind of medical condition that comes from exposure to cold."
"Of course you do." Leah felt silly for saying it at all. "Sorry. I didn't mean I doubted your expertise."
"No need to apologize." He smiled at her. "I should've said it better. When someone says something's going to sting a little, and then there are a thousand stabbing pains attacking your nerves, it makes sense to think something might be wrong."
Emily squawked again, tugging harder at Leah's shirt. Thankfully, Leah was wearing a couple of layers, instead of the loose top she usually wore at home, so Emily wasn't able to get at what she wanted that easily.
"Um," she said again. "I think Emily's hungry."
"Oh, sure," Jeff said. "I saw some baby food in the backpack, let me get it..."
"Um, no," Leah said, and he paused, looking back at her. "I mean, she wants to nurse."
Emily yanked at her shirt again, making her wants extremely clear.
"Oh," Jeff said blankly. "Oh. Uh. Well, I'll just...I'll just chop some wood." He looked over at the fireplace. "Yeah. We definitely need wood. There has to be an axe around here somewhere, and I'll just go find it and...chop some wood. Does it take a while? I don't want to invade your privacy when I come back in."
Invade your privacy. It was such a nice, courteous way to say it. “No,” Leah reassured him. “She never eats for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I guess chopping wood probably takes longer than that?”
Jeff nodded firmly. “Definitely longer than that. Let me go find the axe.”
Emily started to cry for real as he walked off, and Leah glanced after him. He was very purposefully not looking over at the couch, so she quickly tugged up her layered shirts and unclasped her nursing bra.
Once Emily was in place, happy now that she had her dinner, Leah grabbed her scarf, which fortunately was the kind that unfolded into almost a shawl, and draped it over herself. It made a decent nursing cover, and Emily thankfully didn’t get annoyed and try to pull it off.
Jeff walked back into view, holding an axe, his eyes still firmly averted. It was a sight—this imposing male figure, tall and broad and holding the heavy axe casually in one hand, politely turning his head to preserve her modesty.
“You can look,” Leah assured him.
He looked over at her, but he kept his eyes steadily on her face. “I’m going to go look for wood. It’ll need to be dry enough to burn,
so it might take me a little while to find it, especially in the snow. I’ll come back to the cabin every ten minutes to check on you. If you need help, just come to the window and wait for me. If there isn’t an emergency, keep your feet in the water for at least another twenty minutes or so.”
Leah nodded, matching his serious tone. “Okay.”
“You’re going to be okay? Is there anything you need before I leave?”
This man had saved her and her baby from certain death, carried them to shelter, built a fire, treated her injuries, and was going out into the freezing cold again to make sure they stayed warm, and he wanted to know if there was anything else she needed?
“I’m just fine.” And despite the burning in her feet, despite her useless car, despite the storm raging outside, for the first time in a long time, somehow Leah did feel like everything might be okay.
***
Jeff shut the cabin door behind him and blew out his breath in a long sigh.
He’d never seen a woman breastfeeding before. His sisters and sisters-in-law always retreated to a separate room to do it.
Not that he’d seen anything. Leah had had her scarf draped over her, so there hadn’t been any more exposed skin than before. But Emily’s shape had been clear under the scarf, her little feet kicking as she nursed, and it had been very clear what was happening, even though Jeff had tried not to look anywhere but into Leah’s eyes. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable at all.
Women were amazing. The way they could nourish their children directly from their bodies...Jeff had to marvel at that. It seemed almost magical.
It also made him feel even more protective. The knowledge that Leah was back in the cabin, alone and vulnerable, feeding her baby, made him fiercely aware that he was the only thing standing between them and the harsh wilderness.
He was going to make sure they stayed safe, warm, and protected. He remembered Leah’s frantic expression as she asked if Emily had any signs of frostbite. She wasn’t going to have to worry about her baby’s safety again.
Once he was a safe distance from the cabin, Jeff stowed the axe and shifted. It would be easier to find suitable fallen logs in his leopard form, especially in the snow. Thankfully, since this was the first snowfall of the season, and it had been dry and cold for a couple of weeks beforehand, any fallen wood should still be dry enough to burn.
He needed to take care of this as quickly as he could, and get back inside to Leah.
More than ever, Jeff wanted to know how Leah had ended up here in the mountains, alone with her baby. She had an air of exhausted desperation to her, like she was on her very last legs, and he didn’t think it was all due to her hike through the snow.
He was sure that she needed help. But she didn’t want to admit it, and he couldn’t help her if he didn’t know what the problem was.
Maybe he couldn’t help her anyway, he tried to reason with himself. If she was in legal trouble, he couldn’t do anything. If she was in debt, if she just needed money...Jeff had savings, but it wasn’t a ton of money, not enough to help someone in the long term.
But reason didn’t seem to be working. If she needed money, he knew he’d give her some. If she needed any other kind of help, he’d give her that, too.
This is crazy. Why was he contemplating handing over his bank account to a woman he’d just met? It didn’t make any sense, but that didn’t seem to have any impact on his instincts.
And if it was a choice between handing over some money that he didn’t need for anything specific right now and letting a mother and her baby starve, that wasn’t any choice at all.
He was getting ahead of himself, though. He didn’t know what Leah needed. Maybe she was on her way to meet Emily’s dad somewhere, and they were going to set up house together and be just fine.
That thought should’ve been calming, but somehow it wasn’t.
None of that was important right now, though. He had to focus on finding wood.
It didn’t take too long to locate a suitable fallen tree; hardly anyone came up here, especially at this time of year, so the forest was essentially untouched. He came across a log that had been sheltered from the snow by the dense evergreen foliage above it, and carefully noted its location before running back toward the cabin.
He shifted back to human just before he got there, and went to the window to check on Leah and make sure she was all right.
She was still on the couch, her feet in the bowl of water, nursing Emily. She’d taken the scarf off, but the angle of the window meant that he wasn’t seeing anything he shouldn’t be, just the curve of her shoulder and the fall of her hair.
He’d meant what he said, before; he hoped she didn’t cut it. It was a cascade of dark brown curls, rippling over her shoulders and tumbling halfway down her back. He could just imagine running his fingers through it...
Stop that.
He couldn’t be attracted to Leah. She was a young mother, and Emily’s dad had to exist somewhere. Maybe they were going to meet him.
Although she wasn’t wearing a ring.
But even if Leah was single, that just meant that she was a single mom with a baby to focus on. Jeff couldn’t imagine that she’d want to date anybody under those circumstances. She clearly had a lot on her plate already.
But maybe he could help her with some of it...
No. Jeff was not going to bother a stressed-out woman with a baby to take care of by hitting on her. Especially not when they were out at a deserted cabin in the middle of a snowstorm together, jeez.
“Get it together, Hart,” he murmured to himself. “You have a job to do.” He had to make sure that Leah and Emily were safe. That was far more important than any thoughts he might be having about her gorgeous hair, or her deep blue eyes, or the curved body that he’d seen hints of through her layers of clothing.
Just as he was thinking that, Leah turned her head to look at the window. Seeing him there, she gave him a tiny smile and held out a thumb’s-up.
Jeff gave a thumb’s-up back and headed out to where he’d stashed the axe. Time to chop some wood.
But he couldn’t help thinking that he wanted to make Leah smile a real smile. Something more than just the turned-up corners of her mouth, something to light up her face with happiness.
Wood. Chop wood. He picked up the axe and headed out.
***
It didn’t take too long to build up enough of a wood supply for a couple of days. Hopefully they wouldn’t be here that long, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some left over to replace what they’d used.
Jeff carried it inside to store by the fireplace in a few trips. Leah, he saw, had finished feeding Emily and taken her feet out of the bowl of water so that she could follow the baby around as she explored the cabin.
“You really shouldn’t be walking yet,” Jeff observed when he came in the second time. “Are your feet still numb?”
She shook her head. “They hurt a bit, but they’re not numb anymore. They hurt a lot while they were in the water, but it’s better now.”
“Good, that’s just what you want to happen. But the skin still shouldn’t be irritated if you can help it, which means you should really stay off your feet.”
Leah made a grab for Emily as she crawled toward the fireplace. The baby was really booking it, and Leah was barely fast enough to keep her from getting away. “Believe me,” she said, “I’d sit if I could. But this one isn’t cooperating. She really wants to check out the fire.”
“I got her,” Jeff said. “You sit down. I promise I won’t let her crawl into the fireplace.”
Leah hesitated. Jeff understood her not wanting to let Emily go, especially with someone she’d just met. “Nieces and nephews, remember?” he said. “I’m very familiar with how babies have this driving need to find anything harmful to them and put it in their mouths. I got her covered.”
“Well...I guess so.” Leah stepped back as Jeff came over to Emily, and went back to the couch to sit down. He heard
her sigh in relief as she took her weight off her feet, and he suspected that she’d been playing down how much it hurt.
That left him with Emily. He sat down on the floor next to her. “Hey, there.”
She looked at him. She was a cute baby, all curly brown hair like her mom’s and deep brown eyes that must be her dad’s. Her skin was the same olive-tan color as Leah’s, and she had a little turned-up nose and round, chubby cheeks.
“You look like a smart little girl,” Jeff told her. “You want to check out the fire, huh? Explore the world a little? How about we take a look, but keep it safe?”
He reached out slowly, giving her time to decide if she wanted to freak out. She stayed quiet, so he lifted her up. She started squirming when he settled her back-to-front against his chest, but calmed down immediately when he went over to the fireplace, staring at the fire with fascination.
He knelt down in front of it, giving her a good view but keeping well back from it, and holding on firmly so that she wouldn’t be able to get away no matter how hard she tried.
“There, take a look. Fire. Pretty cool, huh?”
She reached for it. “No, no,” Jeff said. “It’s hot. See?” He leaned forward just a little, so that she could feel the increase in heat, then leaned back.
“You’re really good with her,” Leah said quietly from behind him.
Jeff shrugged. “I like babies. They’re cute. And they’re always watching stuff, trying to figure things out. That’s something more adults could stand to do, I always think.”
Working as a park ranger, he ran into his fair share of problems that had been caused by people simply not paying attention.
When Emily squirmed again, he set her on her feet and took both of her hands. She took the hint immediately and started doing the unsteady baby walk, clutching at his fingers. He grinned and stood up, supporting her as she walked away from the fire, smiling widely at her own accomplishment.
“She’s good at this,” Jeff noticed.