The Baby Surprise

by Brenda Harlen

  “I’m sure. Good night, Paige.”

  “Good night.”

  Emma was, as usual, awake by six the next morning, which meant that Paige was, too. After changing the baby’s diaper, Paige tucked her against her hip and started down the stairs. When she stepped into the living room, she had a moment to wonder if she’d only dreamed the disaster she’d come home to the night before because the room was absolutely immaculate. Continuing on to the kitchen, she found that the same was true there.

  She settled Emma in her high chair with a cup of juice and set about making a pot of coffee. Emma banged her sippy cup on the tray.

  “Yes, I know you want breakfast,” she said soothingly, “but I need my caffeine kick in the morning.”

  Emma banged her cup again but was somewhat appeased when Paige sprinkled a few Cheerios on her tray. She put the cereal box back in the cupboard and opened the fridge to retrieve the eggs and milk. When she closed the door again, the note tacked to it fluttered.

  Please don’t call the police. I didn’t steal your car—I simply borrowed it to get to the B and B because you still have the keys to my Jeep. I’ll be back early in the a.m., but please call my cell (201-555-4757) if you need your car before then.

  Zach

  She set the eggs and milk on the counter before she retraced her steps to the living room, peering out the front window just in time to see her car pulling into the driveway beside the Jeep that was still parked there.

  The driver’s side door of the Audi opened and Zach stepped out.

  His blue eyes were shaded from the sun by dark glasses and he was casually dressed in a Just Do It T-shirt that stretched across his broad chest and a pair of well-faded jeans that hugged his narrow hips. He truly was an exceptional specimen of masculinity and—judging by the speed with which Melanie Quinlan raced down her walk, practically dragging her Chihuahua behind her—she obviously wasn’t the only woman who thought so.

  Though Paige couldn’t hear what Melanie said, she knew her neighbor had called out to Zach, because he turned to respond. But he didn’t chat with her for very long, since he was almost at the front door when Paige pulled it open.

  Zach smiled and her pulse leaped.

  “I’m not too early, then?” he said by way of greeting.

  “No. Emma is an early bird.”

  “And you’re not,” he guessed.

  “I never used to be, but I’ve learned to adapt.”

  “I didn’t mean to intrude on your morning,” he said, “but I wanted to get your car back before you needed it.”

  “I was just going to make some eggs if you wanted to join us.”

  “I didn’t come over here to be fed,” he protested, though not very vehemently.

  “And if I wasn’t already planning on making breakfast, I wouldn’t have offered to feed you,” she told him.

  “In that case, I’d love some eggs,” he replied, and followed her into the kitchen.

  Emma’s face lit up when she saw him, and Zach’s heart melted. “Ack!” she said, which was apparently her interpretation of his name and which she followed with her favorite word, “Pawk.”

  He smiled and ruffled her hair. “Maybe later,” he told her, then, “Mmm, that coffee smells great.”

  “You know where the mugs are,” Paige said. She dug his keys out of her purse and set them on the counter. “I completely forgot we’d switched vehicles last night.”

  “Not a problem,” he assured her, reaching around her to open the cupboard door.

  As he did, he caught a whiff of her scent. It was subtle, with just the slightest hint of vanilla, which made him think it was probably a lotion rather than perfume. Of course, that brought to mind images of Paige smoothing lotion over her naked skin, running her hands up her long legs, down her slender arms, over her—

  “Scrambled?”

  The question jolted Zach out of his fantasy. “What?”

  “Your eggs.” She continued breaking them into a bowl. “Do you like them scrambled?”

  “Sure,” he said and filled his mug from the pot.

  She splashed some milk into the bowl with the eggs, added a dash of salt and pepper and picked up the whisk.

  Zach sipped his coffee.

  Paige poured the mixture into a frying pan. “Did you bring in a cleaning crew after I went up to bed last night?”

  “Not necessary,” he said. “It looked a lot worse than it was.”

  “Forgive me if I’m a little skeptical about that.”

  He grinned. “Okay, it was pretty bad, but my mother taught me to always pick up after myself.”

  “Well, it was a pleasant surprise to wake up this morning and not have to face the chaos I saw last night.”

  “If you were impressed with a little tidying, you should see what I can do with a bed.”

  The inadvertent innuendo cracked between them, sizzling in the air like the eggs in the pan.

  Paige’s cheeks turned pink, confirming that she had taken the same mental detour he had. And he found himself wondering if her thoughts had drifted in that direction even half as often as his had. And if they had—if they were both feeling this tug of attraction—what the heck were they going to do about it?

  Nothing. He answered his own question firmly. Definitively.

  He cleared his throat. “I meant that I can make up a bed so tight that a quarter tossed down on the middle of the mattress will bounce six inches,” he explained.

  Paige just nodded and kept her focus on the eggs in the pan, while he tried to block out the mental image of bouncing on a mattress with her. Because how completely inappropriate was that? And why did he, even knowing it was completely inappropriate, find the idea so damned appealing?

  He pushed the thought out of his mind and asked, “Can I help you with anything?”

  “You can butter the toast,” she said, just as it popped out of the toaster.

  Zach was grateful for the task because it gave him something to do with his hands so that he couldn’t give in to the urge to reach for her and determine once and for all if the attraction he felt was mutual.

  Unfortunately, the task didn’t keep his mind as occupied as his hands, and his thoughts continued to wander. And although he couldn’t deny that several of those thoughts touched upon plans for getting Paige naked, he found himself simply enjoying the morning routine. Working with Paige to put breakfast on the table, retrieving the sippy cup Emma kept throwing to the ground, dodging the bits of toast and egg that she threw at him, then helping Paige tidy up the kitchen again when they’d finished their meal.

  Their conversation was easy—although they were both careful not to make any mention of Emma’s paternity—and he found himself relaxing in her company. Not that he was completely relaxed—how could he be when he was so keenly aware of her presence, her every movement and every breath?

  No doubt about it—twenty-three months was a long time for a man to go without the pleasures of female companionship, yet he hadn’t been aware of how very long it had been, and he certainly hadn’t felt so acutely deprived until he met Paige. Which meant that he didn’t want sex as much as he wanted Paige.

  And that, he knew, was a big complication.

  After the kitchen was cleaned, Paige left Zach with another cup of coffee while she took Emma upstairs to get her washed up and changed. When they came back down again, he pushed away from the table.

  “I have to check out of Hadfield House,” he said. “The clerk wasn’t at the desk when I left this morning.”

  “You’re leaving?” Paige wasn’t sure why she was surprised or why his words caused something that felt like a pang of disappointment. After all, ever since he’d shown up at her door she’d been hoping he would turn around and leave again. But she’d started to get used to having him around; she’d started to believe he actually planned to stay. Of course, she should have realized that as soon as she began to count on someone, it was a cue for him to leave.

  “Just leaving
the B and B,” he told her. “When I first checked in, I didn’t know how long I would be staying and the clerk didn’t think to mention that they were booked for the holiday weekend.”

  “So where are you going?”

  “I’ll try one of the hotels in town.”

  So he wasn’t leaving town after all, she realized, strangely relieved by that fact. Maybe he would turn out to be a man that she—that Emma, she hastily amended—could count on. Still, Paige hesitated a moment before she said, “There’s a spare room here.”

  Zach paused with his hand on the door. “Are you just sharing information or offering to let me stay with you?”

  She hadn’t intended to invite him to stay, but she felt guilty for attempting to thwart his every effort. Or maybe she felt that she owed him because he’d been so great with Megan the day before, not to mention that he’d cleaned up her house.

  Yes, he’d been at least partially responsible for the mess in the first place, but his efforts were commendable. And he really did seem to want to get to know Emma and to be willing to take things slowly for the little girl’s sake, and Paige found that she couldn’t—in good conscience—continue to stand in his way.

  Whatever her reasons, she simply shrugged, as if her offer wasn’t a big deal. “You seem intent on hanging around here most of the time anyway.”

  “I’d be more than happy to get out of your hair, but you panic any time Emma is even out of your sight.”

  She couldn’t deny it was true. “I don’t know you well enough to trust you yet,” she reminded him. “Maybe staying under the same roof will change that.”

  “Then I’ll accept the offer,” he said. “Because I know you have no reason to want to help me and all kinds of reasons not to.”

  “I’m doing it for Emma,” she said. “Because if it turns out that you are her father, I want her to have a relationship with you.”

  “Do you really still doubt that I am?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters what the DNA test reveals.”

  “How long did you say it would take to get the results?”

  “Because we’re using a private lab, probably not more than a week or ten days.”

  “When did you say we can get it done?”

  “Cameron said he can squeeze us in right after lunch on Monday.”

  “That would be good,” Zach said.

  For him, maybe. Paige would prefer to do the test…never. But that was an emotional and selfish response. This wasn’t about her and the potential repercussions for her life—it was about Emma, and she truly did want what was best for Olivia’s daughter.

  “I’ll head over to the B and B now to settle up and be back here in about an hour. Then—” he glanced at Emma, who was sitting in an Elmo chair and turning the thick pages of a favorite book “—maybe I can take Emma to the p-a-r-k.”

  Although Paige knew logically that a fourteen-month-old with a very limited vocabulary couldn’t possibly spell, she also knew that Emma had an unerring instinct about some things, which she proved when her head shot up in response to Zach’s comment. “Pawk?”

  Zach’s brows lifted. Paige shrugged.

  “Later,” he promised.

  Later, when Zach and Emma had gone to the park, Ashley brought a plate of frosted brownies over to Paige.

  “I had a craving,” she offered the explanation along with the squares.

  “Thank you.” Paige’s mouth was already watering and her gratitude was sincere. “But how does your craving lead to me getting brownies?”

  Ashley followed her into the kitchen. “Because I satisfied my craving, and because it will be something completely different that I have to have tomorrow, I thought I would share.”

  Paige peeled back the plastic wrap and snuck a square out from under the cover.

  “You could offer me a cup of tea in exchange for the goodies,” Ashley suggested, settling at the table.

  “Oh. My.” Paige’s eyes closed as she bit into the chocolate and pure bliss exploded on her tongue. “All you want is a cup of tea? I’d be willing to give up one of my kidneys for chocolate this good.”

  Ashley smiled. “Been a while since you had some?”

  They both knew she wasn’t referring to chocolate. Paige popped the rest of the brownie into her mouth as she turned on the tap to fill the kettle. “I’m not even sure I could tell you how long.”

  Her cousin removed the cover from the plate. “Dig in.”

  Paige tossed teabags into the pot and retrieved a couple of mugs from the cupboard before she helped herself to another brownie.

  “Speaking of sex,” Ashley said. “Did I see Zach come in here with a duffel bag?”

  “I’m not sure I follow your segue,” Paige said cautiously.

  Her cousin smirked. “You look at Zach Crawford the way a sexually deprived woman looks at a plate of double-chocolate fudge brownies.”

  Paige turned away from her cousin’s knowing gaze to pour boiling water into the teapot. “Hadfield House was booked for the weekend and because Zach is spending most of his time here anyway, it made sense for him to take the spare room.”

  “I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” Ashley said. “I’m just…surprised.”

  “Surprised that I could be reasonable?”

  Her cousin’s lips twitched, as if she was fighting against a smile. “Well, you haven’t exactly been reasonable since Zach showed up.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No,” Ashley admitted, her hand moving instinctively, protectively, to cover her rounded belly. “Because I know you wouldn’t love that little girl any more if you’d given birth to her, and because I know I would fight to my last breath against anyone who threatened to take my baby.”

  “Speaking of babies,” Paige said, eager to change the subject. “Have you seen Marcus today?”

  “I just came from the hospital,” Ashley said. “And though I wouldn’t have thought it possible, he’s even more beautiful than he was yesterday.”

  “And the new mommy?”

  “Radiant but exhausted. Apparently the baby woke up every two hours in the night to nurse.”

  Paige winced. “I can’t imagine.”

  “Gage offered to give him a bottle so she could sleep, but Meg is determined to ensure that Marcus has the best start and she believes breastfeeding is crucial to that and giving him a bottle at this stage could create nipple confusion and—as you can imagine—after a few more minutes of listening to her exceptionally detailed reasoning, Gage’s eyes started to glaze over.”

  But Ashley only looked wistful, and Paige knew her cousin was now even more anxious to hold her own baby in her arms.

  “Only a couple more months and you can debate the benefits of cloth diapers versus disposables until Cam’s eyes glaze over.”

  “We’ve already done that one.” Ashley said and helped herself to a brownie. “Now getting back to Zach.”

  “Why?” Paige asked warily.

  “Because I guess what I’m really surprised about is that you invited this guy—this stranger—to live with you.”

  “First of all, he’s not exactly a stranger—he’s the man that Olivia believed was Emma’s father. Second, we’re not living together—he’s only staying with me until the question of Emma’s paternity has been answered. Third, you were the one who told me I should cooperate with him.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Ashley mumbled.

  “And why doesn’t it seem like a good idea now?”

  “Because there’s a…vibe…whenever you and Zach are in the same room together.”

  “A vibe?”

  Her cousin nodded. “Like I said, you look at him like he’s a chocolate brownie, and he looks at you like…like you’re a woman he really wants to get naked with.”

  “I’m sure you’re misinterpreting something.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Even if that’s true—and Zach hasn’t said or done
anything to suggest that it is—you have to know that I would never fall for a guy just because he looks good in uniform.” And she figured her cousin, who was all too aware of the tumultuous relationship Paige had with her own father, would understand that better than most.

  “I’m not worried that you’d fall for Zach because of his uniform but in spite of it,” Ashley clarified.

  “There’s no need to worry at all,” Paige assured her.

  She only hoped she sounded more confident than she felt because the truth was, the more time she spent with Zach, the more she forgot about the uniform and focused on the man. And she knew that could undermine all of her plans.

  Chapter Six

  Paige had seen enough in her family law practice to know that there were good parents and bad parents and some who were simply indifferent. She also knew that some mothers and fathers emulated the parenting practices they’d grown up with, and others consciously chose to distance themselves from same.

  Paige didn’t remember her mother. She remembered, too well, her father. His apparent lack of interest in and affection for his daughter, his complete disregard of her wants and needs, his callous dismissal of her love. For years, she’d believed that she only had to try harder, be better, study more, or look prettier, and if she succeeded, then he might actually see her, maybe even care about her.

  After her thirteenth birthday, she’d realized how delusional she’d been. And she’d decided that if she wanted any attention from her father—and as foolish as she knew it was, she still did—she was going to have to take drastic action to get that attention.

  That was when she’d started hanging out with the older kids on base, breaking curfew and, when she was grounded, sneaking out at night to go to parties. And then she’d met Second Lieutenant Matthew Sanders. She’d known he was older—that was part of the attraction for her. Not old enough that anyone would accuse her of looking for a father figure, just old enough to shock her own father, if he ever noticed that she was with him.