He'd changed so much in the last couple of years, he didn't even seem like the same brother she'd always known. And she wasn't the only one worried. "But he's working on it. Talking to people. Asking questions." Maggie tipped her head to one side. "I hear he's your new tenant."
"Another temporary situation," Carol assured her.
"How is he so far?"
"Crabby," Carol answered before she thought about it. Then she winced. After all, not only was Maggie Reilly Cooper Jack's sister, but a representative of Social Services. Carol really couldn't afford to piss her off. Not if she wanted to keep little Liz around.
But Maggie laughed. Blue eyes flashing, she shook her head, swinging her dark red hair back from her face. "Yeah, he is crabby. More so now than he used to be, too. But he's a good guy underneath all the crap." Then her features softened. "Just wish we could convince him of that. He's had a bad couple of years . .." She bit her bottom lip and let her words trail off, sentence unfinished.
Carol wondered what Maggie was leaving unsaid, but didn't ask. After all, she'd never been a part of a family, but she knew how they worked. They circled the wagons, protecting their own from outsiders. You didn't have to be on the inside to know it existed, she thought. Whatever secrets Jack had would remain secret unless he spilled them. And Carol really couldn't see that happening, so she'd just have to learn to live with her curiosity.
Dammit.
"Okay," Maggie announced as she checked over the
papers before stuffing them back into her brown leather satchel. "That'll do it." She stood up, swinging the bag's strap over her shoulder, then stopped just as she took a step toward the door. "You know, if you want, I could get Jack to stop by my place and pick up my kids' old crib."
Glancing down at the drawer, Carol nodded. "You bet, if you're sure you don't need it."
"Trust me on this," Maggie said, heading for the door, "I'm never going to need it again." She grabbed the doorknob, gave it a turn, and grinned at Carol. "Congratulations. You are now the proud foster mother of a bouncing baby girl."
Carol smiled and thought about how her life had come full circle. As a child, in one lonely year, she'd had a series of foster homes herself, bouncing from one place to the next, always hoping for permanence. Always hoping to find the one place where she could belong. Where she could stay.
Now, she was the foster parent.
And it wasn't permanent this time, either.
Carol's heart ached a little as she stared down at little Liz, so tiny, so beautiful.
Still, she had the baby for now. She would enjoy it. She would relish every minute, and then when it was time, she would let little Liz go. Because keeping her would mean loving her. And she couldn't do that. Couldn't love and lose.
Not again.
with the guy stepping out of the waves, shaking his head, sending water droplets flying from his long blond hair.
She sighed a little in pure appreciation. Seriously, JT Hawkins had really been working out. His excellent abs were totally dreamworthy.
The day was perfect. Her shift at the hotel was over until tomorrow, summer crowds dotted the beach, and the scent of coconut oil drifted in the hot, still air. Perfect.
Especially while she had such a great view of JT.
"Hello? Earth to Peggy."
Peggy sighed again, pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and without taking her gaze off JT, said, "Huh?"
"Clever." Lacey tossed a bottle of suntan lotion at her and grinned when Peggy yelped. Once she had her friend's attention, she said, "We were talking about tomorrow?"
"What?" Peggy reluctantly gave up the JT stare-fest and swiveled her head to face her friends. Donna and Lacey were looking at her like she was nuts. "Tomorrow what?"
"The Fourth?" Donna said in a tone that implied the word, "duh."
"The party?" Lacey prompted.
"Oh. .." Peggy nodded, lay back in her sand chair, and let her gaze slide back to where JT and his friends were laughing and throwing a football around. Naturally, they were only doing it so the girls on the beach would watch and admire—so who was she to deprive them and ruin the grand plan of the universe? "You really think the party's going to come off now?"
"Why not?" Donna wanted to know.
"Baby alert," Peggy muttered and slathered on another
layer of SPF 30. Hey, redheads didn't tan—they boiled. "Every parent in town is going crazy over this abandoned baby."
"Not just the parents," Lacey said, her gaze drifting over the people scattered over the sand. "Everybody's talking about the baby."
"Well, yeah," Donna said. "I mean, Vd like to know who the mom is."
Peggy thought about it for a long minute, following Lacey's gaze to sweep across the beach. She'd grown up in Christmas, just like Lacey and Donna. They knew all the same people, had been in school with them for like ... ever. So how could somebody sneak a pregnancy past any of them? "Maybe we could figure out who she is."
Lacey snorted. "Yeah? How?"
"I don't know." Peggy shrugged and smiled. "But we're all nosy, right? We can at least try to think of who it might be."
"Could be fun." Donna opened her eyes and glanced at them. "Like a detective novel or something."
"Maybe," Lacey said, sitting back in her chair and tipping her face up to the sun. "I mean, how hard can it be?"
"Exactly." Peggy smiled to herself and tossed the tube of sunblock to her towel.
Lacey tugged her too big T-shirt a little farther down over her bathing suit. She'd lost a lot of weight over the last few months, but she was still a little self-conscious about her body. "But before we turn all Sherlock Holmesy, what about the party?"
"I say we party." Donna stretched out on her towel, holding her arms out from her sides like she was about to be nailed to a cross. "We're good to go."
Peggy wanted to think so. Since graduating from high school the month before, the senior class of—as
the students fondly referred to it—Bah Humbug High had been planning a celebration. One last blowout together before their small class was split up and everyone went on to college and jobs, most of them leaving Christmas behind. A party that they'd been planning for the last two months. One that Peggy'd really hate to miss. But now, with the baby thing and her mom on Teen Patrol and her brother Jack the temporary police chief... things didn't look so good.
"We are going, right?" Lacey asked.
Peggy looked at her friends and smiled. Lacey and Donna were really gung ho for this party. In the last few months, they'd been on serious diets and for the first time in, like, ever they both were looking pretty darn good. Be a shame to waste it, right?
And this summer was really their class's last chance to be together. Not to mention the fact that the senior-class party was a Christmas tradition. Plus, once they were all off at college, nothing would ever really be the same again. They'd come home on vacation, sure, but everything else would be... different. Besides, she thought, it's a party. What could go wrong?
"Damn straight," Peggy said and tipped her face up to the sun. "A party's just what we need."
Liz had been fed.
Her diapers had been changed.
She'd burped like a champ.
And she was still screaming.
Something was definitely wrong.
Quinn whined and whimpered in sympathy. His cries rose and fell in tandem with the baby as though they'd arranged a concert in harmony.
This was one concert, though, Carol would have gladly missed.
"Quinn," she said tightly, "you are not helping." But the big dog only paced in time with her, his intermittent cries keeping a rhythm as his nails clicked against the floor.
Shadows filled the room. From outside the windows, the glow of the Christmas lights sparkled like jewel-toned stars. Wind rattled the windowpanes and a flickering light flashed from the muted television as space aliens battled the valiant defenders of Earth. Ordinarily, Carol would have been on the couc
h, with a bowl of popcorn, cheering the good guys on. Tonight, though, she was fighting a battle all her own.
Carol jiggled the baby gently and patted her diapered behind and swayed and hummed and, as a last resort, tried singing. But even she couldn't relax when she was singing, so she stopped that pretty damn quick.
Liz's cries continued, as if she were an opera singer trapped in a time loop, stuck singing the same aria over and over again.
She was really out of ideas.
The baby's face was now beet red and that couldn't be a good thing, right? Couldn't babies have strokes or something? And if not Liz, Carol was pretty sure she was close to a stroke.
"Oh, I so suck at this," she whispered, her words getting lost in the storm of Liz's screech. Shaking her head, Carol reminded herself just how many times over the years that she'd dreamed of this. Of having a child, building a family. Who knew that she had, apparently, no talent for child care?
Carol glanced at her phone, sitting silent and useless on an end table beside the overstuffed floral-fabric
couch. She couldn't call Phoebe—the one person she would ordinarily turn to in a crisis of this magnitude— because Phoebe had deserted her in her hour of need. Instead of being in Carol's apartment watching the Star-gate marathon on the sci-fi channel and eating buckets of popcorn, Phoebe was out having sex. Yes, sex.
Carol's back teeth ground together. Whether the flash of emotion that shot through her body and was gone again in an instant was self-pity or envy didn't really matter. The point was, Phoebe had thrown her best friend over for a chance at mind-boggling sex with a gorgeous carpenter.
Some people, Carol thought, had absolutely no loyalty.
Although, she really couldn't blame Phoebe any. Cash Hunter, the carpenter in question, filled out his Levi's in such a way, he could melt the resistance of a nun—much less that of an overworked doctor.
Sadly, it had been so long since Carol had had sex herself, she was pretty sure she wouldn't remember what to do if the opportunity presented itself. Which she really didn't have to worry about, since the chances of that opportunity popping up were slim to none. Especially at the moment. A screaming newborn was a better birth control device than a condom.
"Come on, Liz," she murmured, softly stroking the baby's stiffened spine, "give me a break here, okay? I'm doing the best I can." And her best was apparently pretty pitiful. Carol's ears rang with the echo of the baby's screams and her heart ached for the poor little thing. Something was obviously wrong and Carol obviously had no idea how to fix it.
Nothing like a baby to make you feel completely inadequate.
Lizardbaby had her own issues and seemed, Carol
thought as the headache behind her eyes cranked up another notch, able to go without breathing for exceptionally long periods of time. The baby's wails went on as one, long howl, unbroken by gasps for air.
The Alien Baby thing flitted through her mind again, but she let go again almost instantly. Carol was just too damn tired to play the game.
"It's okay, sweetie, honest." If her voice sounded a little strained, she was hoping the baby wouldn't notice. "You're safe. You're warm and dry and ... really cranky." She blew out a breath that ruffled the fringe of bangs over her forehead and did nothing to ease the frustration simmering inside.
Quinn sat down in front of her and his big head nearly reached her waist. He looked up at her, watching, clearly offering silent doggie support.
Carol hardly noticed.
Cranky.
That one word echoed over and over again in her brain until it finally rang a bell.
Maybe you had to fight cranky with cranky.
And she had the veritable king of cranky living right across the hall.
But was she desperate enough to go to him for help? Was she really willing to swallow what was left of her pride and admit that she couldn't handle a six-pound shrieking baby?
Another screech sounded in her ear and rattled through her brain.
Yes, she thought. Yes, she was willing to ask for help. She was willing to baiter or bribe to get it.
So there was nothing else to do.
She had to admit defeat.
Hey, if Mr. Charm was going to live across the hall,
she might as well get some use out of him. And if it wasn't exactly the kind of use Phoebe was even now getting out of the carpenter, well, no one but Carol had to know she felt any twinge of regret.
Starting across the room, she barely heard Quinn's nails clicking, first loudly, then muffled, as he raced across bare wood and throw rugs, keeping pace with her.
"It's okay, Quinn. We're good. We're just calling in the cavalry."
She grabbed the doorknob, threw the door open, and ... ducked—just in time to avoid Jack's knuckles, raised to knock.
Quinn growled, a low rumble of sound that almost overwhelmed the baby's cries.
Almost.
"I was just coming to see you."
Jack's gaze shot first to Quinn, then slammed back up to Carol's. "What the hell are you doing to that baby?" he demanded at the same time she spoke.
"Doing?" Carol repeated, hearing her voice climb to a note it had never reached before. Swaying and jiggling and rubbing, she glared up at him. "Well, clearly, I'm abusing her viciously. Can't you tell by how pleased I look?"
He rolled his eyes.
Wow, Carol thought. Animation. But before she had time to be thoroughly stunned, he ducked his head, stepped into her apartment, and scooped the wailing infant right out of her arms.
Silence dropped on the room.
Absolute silence.
It was eerie.
Carol yawned widely, trying to pop her ears, sure for one brief, terrifying second that she'd gone deaf. But a
heartbeat later, she was reassured by the sniffling sound the baby made as she stared up adoringly at Jack Reilly.
"You little traitor," Carol muttered. One look into those big blue eyes of Jack Reilly's and little Liz had curled up and cooed. Irritating as hell. Especially irritating because damned if she didn't want to do the same thing.
Jack held Liz cradled in one strong arm and he swayed gently from side to side, like a man who knew what he was doing. His eyebrows lifted as he inclined his head toward Carol, as if accepting a standing ovation for a role well played.
"How did you do that?" she demanded, silently figuring that if she'd done all of her pacing in a straight line, she'd probably have made it to Utah by now. But despite her every effort she hadn't been able to do in hours what Jack had done in seconds. "Come on, spill the secret. How?"
"Charisma."
Carol choked out a laugh.
"The evidence is in front of you." His lips twitched into what might have been a smile if he'd tried just a bit harder.
No doubt just as well he hadn't, Carol assured herself, since that one, brief glimpse of a not-quite smile, had done some interesting things to her blood pressure. Wow. She must be even more tired than she'd thought.
He stared at her for a long minute or two and the look in his eyes softened as one corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "What?"
"You know," she said, before she could stop herself, "you're pretty cute when you're not frowning at the world."
Instantly, the scowl she was becoming so familiar
with was back in place. "And," he said, "you're not at all annoying until you open your mouth."
"You know, remarks like that will not get you a cup of coffee and a piece of cake."
He stilled. "You have cake?"
Ah, Carol, she told herself, you can really snag the men. Just bring on the baked goods and they're putty in your hands. "Chocolate."
"Sold."
"On one condition."
"I have to listen to you?"
"That, too," she admitted, then added as she leaned in and watched Liz's eyes slowly, inexorably close, "But the main one is, you have to put Liz to bed and make sure she stays asleep."
"Hmm. Listen to her scream
or you talk? Quite the dilemma"
"Don't toy with me, Reilly. You're looking at a woman on the edge."
One dark eyebrow lifted again and Carol had to remind herself that he hadn't come to sweep her off her feet and into a passionate embrace. A shame, really. But in the long run, probably just as well.
"You get the cake. I'll take care of the baby," he said after a long second or two.
"I'm on it."
She turned and left him and Jack's gaze just naturally dropped to the curve of her truly excellent butt. The hem of her denim shorts was frayed and a few long, white threads fell against her tanned thighs as she walked into the kitchen. Her T-shirt was short and Jack caught tantalizing, mouth-watering glimpses of her sleekly tanned back as she moved with a grace that was smooth and easy and, he thought, all too intriguing.
She hit the light switch and he blinked against the sudden brightness.
Jack had had no intention of sticking around Carol Baker's place. One, it was the middle of the night and, two, he didn't think it was a smart move to spend too much time with a woman he'd already noticed smelled like springtime. Now that he was noticing her thighs and the narrow span of her waist, there was even more reason for him to head for the hills.
Women like her were complications, and when a man's life was as seriously screwed as his was, one more complication just wasn't something he should be looking for.
Deliberately, then, he looked away from the bright light of the kitchen and retreated to the shadows. His apartment was laid out exactly like hers, so he went toward the short hall and took a quick right into her bedroom. He saw the crib his sister Maggie had loaned her, set up on the far side of Carol's bed, and headed for it.
A slash of moonlight speared through the window, illuminating the darkness enough that he didn't trip over the quilt rack Carol kept at the foot of her bed. Or stumble into the little stool sitting in front of an old-fashioned dressing table and mirror. In the pale wash of light, he noticed the framed landscapes on the wall, the antique quilt covering the queen-sized bed, and the Tiffany-style shade on the bedside lamp. Her closet doors were open and he saw that her clothes were as organized as her shop. There was a lot of stuff in the room, but somehow, it didn't look messy. Everything was neat and tidy and ... cozy.
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