by Joss Wood
The doorbell chimed again, and Piper hit the button to unlock the main door. She wanted to clean up the mess and change her shirt, but before she had time to do either, Piper heard a knock on the apartment door.
She reluctantly opened it. “Hi. I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
Jaeger looked at the streaks on her shirt and lifted a curl from her right breast, the ends coated in splatters of chicken and carrots. “Hi. You look like you had a food fight with Ty and you lost.”
“Close.” Piper shut the door behind him and looked at his most excellent bum in nicely fitting jeans. Apart from her grungy shirt, she was also wearing yoga pants hanging low on her hips, and she wasn’t wearing any shoes.
“Just another exciting Friday night,” Piper muttered, following him into the living room.
“That’s actually why I’m here,” Jaeger said, standing next to Ty’s playpen. The tips of his fingers brushed Ty’s dark head, and Ty grinned up at him. How could he not see the resemblance? Piper wondered. They had the same eyes, the same hair and the same smile.
“I’ve been let off babysitting duty. Shaw has tonsillitis and Linc is staying home with him,” Jaeger explained. “So I thought you might want to go to Latimore’s exhibition.”
Piper frowned, confused. Jeans, a long-sleeve cobalt T-shirt and a battered leather jacket were not what she would have expected him to wear to an opening night of such importance. “With you?”
“Nope, with my sister Sage.” Jaeger pulled an invitation from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to her. He shrugged out of the leather and tossed it over the back of a chair. “She says she’ll meet you there. She’s as big a fan of art as you are, so you should like each other.”
“But Ty...”
Jaeger bent over the side of the playpen, and Piper couldn’t help admiring his hard, tight butt as he picked up Ty and settled the baby on his hip. “This little dude and I will drink beer and watch ESPN.”
“But—”
“Piper, it seems to me that you don’t have a lot of people to rely on. I understand that Ty is your priority, but you deserve to have some fun, too. Let me make you happy. Let me do this for you.”
No, this was too much! On top of the advance and the great sex, she didn’t think she could cope with him being so ridiculously thoughtful. How was she supposed to resist him?
“Look, I admit I don’t have a hell of a lot of experience with babies, but I can now change a diaper. I’m pretty sure I can make a bottle if you tell me how. Besides, I checked in with Ceri, and she said Rainn will be downstairs because he’s studying, so if Ty starts screaming his head off, I’ll call him to give me a hand.”
Piper bit the inside of her lip, still undecided. She flicked her finger against the edges of the card. “I can’t, Jaeger. I haven’t fed Ty yet. I’d need to shower, put on makeup, a dress. Get into the city.”
Ty’s little hand reached up to grab Jaeger’s ear, then his hair. Jaeger just flashed him a quick smile and allowed Ty’s little hands to explore.
“Sage is going to start looking for you later. I knew you’d need time to sort Ty out and to give me a long lecture on what to do and what not to do.” Ty shouted, and Jaeger followed his eyes to the playpen. He frowned at the pile of toys on the floor. “You’re going to have to be more specific, dude.”
“The yellow duck,” Piper told him. “It’s his favorite.”
Jaeger picked up the duck and handed it over. Ty waved the skinny animal around, its beak scraping along Jaeger’s jaw. “Take a break, Piper. Go meet my sister, talk art, have some wine.”
“I took a break last night,” Piper said, staring at the floor.
“Is there a law somewhere stating single moms can’t go out two nights in a row?” Jaeger asked.
“But...you could be watching basketball!”
“I could also be at a cocktail party, having dinner, seeing a show on Broadway.” Jaeger held her eyes. “If I wanted to be there, I would be. I choose to be here.”
“But why?”
Jaeger shrugged, and Ty loved the up-and-down movement. “Because I can do any of those things on any other night. What you can’t do every night is be one of the first people in the world to see Latimore’s new work. I like his art, but you love it. You appreciate it at a depth I don’t. So, I’d like you to go, even though you had a—” the corners of his mouth turned up “—break last night.”
Piper looked from Jaeger to Ty and back again. Could she leave Ty with him? Could she trust him?
On the other hand, she didn’t have a reason not to trust him. He was Ty’s dad, even though he didn’t know it, and if he came to like Ty a little, maybe that would dilute his shocked reaction when the time came to tell him the truth.
If the time came to tell him about Ty, she silently amended.
“I’ve got this, Piper. Really.”
Ty looked happy enough with Jaeger, she thought. He was a pretty easygoing child and as sociable as a golden retriever. Provided he was fed, was clean and had company, he wouldn’t fuss. She’d be gone only two hours, three at the most. For most of those hours Ty would be asleep. Rainn was five seconds away if something went wrong or if Jaeger found himself out of his depth.
She could be home by half-past ten if she hustled. Jaeger was right. How often did one get to meet the reclusive artist, be the first to see his new work? She was also quite curious to meet Jaeger’s sister...
If their lives hadn’t taken such a U-turn, if they had been two normal people looking for love, was this what living with Jaeger would have been like? Spontaneity and fun? The giving and receiving of pleasure, both in bed and out?
“I can see the capitulation in your eyes.” Jaeger grinned. “Get moving, honey.”
Piper looked at the mess in the kitchen and pushed her curls back. “I need to clean the kitchen first.”
“I can handle the kitchen. You need to shower.” Jaeger reached out and touched the tip of his finger to the ends of her hair. Then, wrapping a curl around his fist, he nudged her chin up with his knuckle. “But first...this.”
Still holding Ty, he leaned in and touched his mouth to hers, his lips cool and assured. He kept a lid on the kiss, not allowing the churning heat to run away from them. Piper heard Ty’s chortle at this new game, felt his small hand bouncing off her head as she closed her eyes and took this moment.
It was over too soon. Piper watched as Jaeger pulled back from her and looked at his son, their son.
“Kissing your mommy is fun. Even when she smells like chicken.”
Ty cocked his head and grinned up at Jaeger. Jaeger smiled back, and Piper’s heart stopped as the two identical smiles held.
God, how much longer could she keep this from him? One of these days he would look at Ty and think This kid looks like me, and then she’d be up the proverbial creek without a paddle and with holes in her canoe.
After tonight she would have to limit the amount of contact Ty and Jaeger had. She would keep them apart. Jaeger had dropped into her life and within another week, maybe two, he’d be gone. He would buy the stones and move on and forget about them both.
She couldn’t, wouldn’t, fall into the trap of playing happy family. It was too easy to lean on him, to be a part of something bigger and better than just her and Ty. But Jaeger wasn’t the type who hunkered down for the long term, and if she thought he might change, she was kidding herself.
Her mother had spent all of her adult life hoping that her father would change, that he’d commit to her, that he’d show interest in the daughter they’d made together.
Jaeger nodded to the stairs. “Get a move on. You are going to be late. Oh, and remind me to give you your check before I go.”
Piper held back her relieved sigh. So their deal was still on. Her shoulders dropped three inches. “T
hank you. Really. For everything. I’m very grateful.”
“No worries,” Jaeger replied, his tone relaxed. He turned away and walked toward the kitchen, stopping in the doorway when he saw the mess. “That was your dinner, Ty? Yuck. Let’s order pizza. Pepperoni, anchovies, olives? What’s your poison?”
“There’s some baby food in the freezer. He’s too young to eat pizza,” Piper said, still hovering at the bottom of the stairs.
Jaeger made a production of looking at Ty and rolling his eyes. “Your mommy thinks I’m an idiot. Of course I know babies can’t eat pizza. But Chinese—you can eat Chinese, can’t you?”
* * *
Jaeger, his hands clammy and his breathing shallow, decided to keep his eyes on Ty for every second he was in charge. If he did, then nothing would happen to the kid.
When Ty fell asleep, he’d keep watching him, make sure he was breathing. Ty would be safe on his watch.
He’d debated long and hard whether he wanted to do this—whether he could spend concentrated alone-time with a baby. But the excitement he’d seen earlier on Piper’s face was worth a little cold sweat.
He liked making Piper happy, both in bed and out, and that fact made his blood run freezing cold. Between Piper and her son, Jaeger was six-foot-plus of scared.
One step at a time, Ballantyne. Keep Ty safe for the next couple of hours.
He could do that if he didn’t panic. Rainn was his safety net, just as much as he was Piper’s. If Rainn hadn’t been a yell away, there was no way Jaeger could have sat here with Ty, on his own.
But he could do this; he had to do this. The chances of this happy, healthy little boy dying of SIDS, or anything else, were a gajillion to one. His mind knew that; his heart still was in fight-or-flight mode.
Calm the hell down, Ballantyne. You can do this.
Jaeger looked out the window of the den and saw Piper climbing into a taxi, her long legs catching an appreciative glance from a pedestrian walking by.
He’d fed Ty, made some coffee and intended to tackle the mess on the kitchen floor, but then Piper walked down the stairs, and the sight of her nearly dropped him to his knees. The dress was black and skimmed across her sexy body, stopping midthigh. He’d just stared at her as she pulled on her coat, wondering whether he could dump Ty in his playpen and take her back upstairs. The dress was enough to give any red-blooded male a heart attack, and like her boots from last night, those silver ice pick heels made him think of her wearing nothing else.
He was seriously worried he might have a shoe fetish. He was seriously worried, period. Jaeger released a long sigh, holding Ty against his chest as he watched Ty’s mommy drive away.
“Your mother is driving me nuts, dude,” Jaeger told Ty, sitting in the wingback chair by the window, Ty straddling his knee. He jiggled, and Ty laughed and waved his yellow duck around. “I just look at her and my IQ drops by twenty points.”
Ty blew him a raspberry, and Jaeger bounced his knee again. “I’m supposed to be risk-averse and yet I do this. I mean, what idiot agrees to give a woman he barely knows a loan against the sale of her gems? From his own friggin’ money, no less. She makes me do things I would never normally consider, just to make her smile. I’m teetering on the edge of a cliff and it’s a long way down.”
But he had yet to take a step back.
Ty cocked his head and gave Jaeger a look he couldn’t read. Was he supposed to keep talking or keep bouncing? Hedging his bets, Jaeger did both. “The gems will definitely sell for three million, and if they are the Kashmir Blues, they’ll sell for a lot more. But I have to trust her to pay me back. I can trust her, right?”
Jaeger nodded and Ty nodded, too, liking this new game. Jaeger chose to believe the kid knew exactly what he was talking about.
“And every time she walks into the room, I just want to strip her naked and slide on home.” Jaeger heard what he’d said and winced, suddenly remembering he was talking not only to a baby but also about the kid’s mother. “Hearing me talk this way about your mom isn’t going to scar you for life and send you into therapy, is it?”
Ty tipped his head sideways and waved his hands after noticing a fabric ball on the carpet by the foot of the chair. Jaeger lowered the baby to the floor and placed the ball between his chubby legs. Then Jaeger moved off the chair to sit on the carpet next to Ty, his legs bent at the knees.
Thanks to the long windows, he could still look at the street below. He rather liked Brooklyn, he thought. Stylistically it was a million miles from his luxurious but cold penthouse. There were trees and families and schools. It was all a little more real, a lot more normal.
“But normal isn’t me,” Jaeger said, watching a couple and their three young kids walking down the street. A golden Labrador, looking like he’d taken a hit of doggy crack, walked a young boy.
“I’m a vagabond, a drifter, someone who is perfectly happy with a designer apartment, with all the amenities of city living. God knows I deserve a little luxury after some of the hellholes I visit and sleep in.”
Ty pushed the ball away from him, Jaeger rolled it back and Ty shouted his approval. This was such a happy kid. Everything made him laugh.
Outside, the dog wrapped his leash around the legs of the kid, and the entire family laughed as they tried to separate the kid and the dog. Dad took control of the dog but not before he dropped a hot openmouthed kiss on Mom. Jaeger grinned when the boy made a “gross” face.
“But really, this house, this place, it’s for families, and I’m not a family guy,” Jaeger said, resting his head back against the cushion of the chair. He watched the street for a couple of minutes, enjoying the changing light. “I was going to be, but I never got the chance. I had my shot at having a happy family, and losing it nearly killed me. I’m not interested. No matter how sexy your mom is. No matter how much I like her, this is a one-shot deal. It’s not forever. So don’t think it is,” Jaeger warned Ty, dropping his head to the right to look at Piper’s son.
Except Ty wasn’t where he’d left him.
Jaeger’s heart stopped. He’d been watching Ty for what, ten minutes, and he’d already lost him? He shot to his feet, his heart pounding as his eyes scanned the den. His head told him the kid wasn’t that fast, but his heart went into panic mode. Jaeger looked at the front door—locked, thank God. Ty had to be somewhere in the apartment. Babies didn’t just vaporize! Then Jaeger caught the movement of a socked foot as it disappeared into the kitchen.
Gotcha. Jaeger put his hands on his thighs and took a few calming, deep breaths. Relax or you’ll give yourself a heart attack.
After a couple of moments, after his heart slowed from a gallop to a jog, Jaeger walked toward the kitchen and found Ty sitting in the mess on the floor—the mess he’d promised Piper he’d clean up. Ty’s little fingers went straight into the goop and up to his mouth. He sucked his digits and dove back in.
By the time Jaeger reached him, the baby had smeared the goop over his face, into his hair, down his clothing and around his neck. The kid had the ability to cause major mayhem in the shortest time possible. Jaeger rather admired that about him.
Jaeger stood in the doorway to the kitchen, pulled his phone from his back pocket and, keeping his eyes on the tiny troublemaker, lifted the phone to his ear.
“Linc? How do you bathe a baby?”
“With soap and water, moron.”
Eight
Piper stepped into the dark hallway of her apartment and sent a guilty glance at her watch. It was after midnight; she’d intended to be back home hours ago, but Latimore’s new work was spectacular and thought-provoking and mesmerizing. She’d spent far more time in the gallery than she’d planned on.
What an evening, Piper thought as she slipped off her shoes. At around ten, the very sexy sculptor finally emerged from a back room, walked directly over to Sage
and, without greeting a single soul or saying a word, planted a smokin’ hot kiss on Sage’s mouth. Sage responded by slapping him, and they’d both stormed out of the gallery. Neither returned, much to the consternation of the gallery owner and his guests. Latimore and Sage were the only topic of conversation for the rest of the evening.
Piper, who’d immediately bonded with the quiet but wickedly funny Sage, was annoyed by the crowd’s fascination with something that had absolutely nothing to do with them. She’d blocked out the snippets of gossip drifting her way and immersed herself in Latimore’s art. The steel and carved wood elements remained but the sculptures weren’t as heavy, as masculine as before. There was fluidity in his work and an unexpected femininity that hadn’t been present in his earlier works.
Latimore might be a jerk—he had to have done something more than kiss Sage to earn a slap like that—but dear God, he was a brilliant artist.
Piper dropped her clutch onto the hallway table and jerked when the bag hit the floor. Dammit, she still wasn’t used to the empty space where the blue marble side table had stood for thirty-odd years. Piper stared at the empty space and slowly raised her eyes to the blank space on the wall. Her Mom’s favorite possession, an early Frida Kahlo, was also gone. So was her beloved eighteenth-century rolltop desk and the ballerina bronze. The items had left her apartment a few days before, soon to be sold to make a teeny tiny dent in her father’s debts.
Tears stung Piper’s eyes and she placed her hand beneath her rib cage, fighting the wave of pain. It wasn’t fair. They were her mother’s possessions, the only proof Piper had that her father loved her mother, that he felt enough for her to buy her a very expensive gift occasionally.
But was that love? Piper wrapped her arms around her waist and stared at the empty spaces on the floor and on the wall and in her heart. Was it still an expression of love when it wasn’t freely given? These gifts, like her father’s affection, were on loan to her mom, always able to be pulled back, to be used for something else.