Babies And Badges (American Baby)

by Laura Marie Altom

  He remembered from holding his ex-girlfriend Diane’s niece, Heather—who was now eight and trying out for pee-wee cheerleader. Where did the time go? Where did the children go? And why was it he still didn’t have a kid—or a baker’s dozen of ’em—to call his own?

  Gee, could it be because you can’t commit?

  Scowling, he moved on to his next favorite cabinet. The one over the dishwasher where he kept chips.

  He’d just touched his hand to the door handle when Little Miss Food Police said, “Nope. I saved you from those, too. Too much salt. Salt’s our enemy.”

  “Look.” His hand cupping Hope’s head, Noah sighed before turning to face her mother. “We need to talk.”

  “About better nutrition?”

  He forced a grin. “Maybe another time.”

  “Then what?”

  “Ever heard that old saying about a man’s house being his castle?”

  “Sure, but I prefer to insert woman for man.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Come on Noelle,” he said, taking her from Cass. “We’re going on a date.”

  “You can’t just take them,” she said, following him and both of her babies into the living room where with no hands he managed just fine to slip on deck shoes, grab his wallet and keys, then nudge open the screen door.

  “Sorry,” he said. “May I please take the girls on a brief date?”

  “Yes, you may. But what about me?”

  “Do you plan on talking nutrition?”

  “If you want.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t want.”

  She dropped her green gaze. “O-okay.”

  Man, how did she do this?

  The woman had just thrown out at least fifty bucks worth of awesome junk food, yet with one glance—or rather lack of a glance—he was the one feeling like he’d done something wrong!

  Standing outside the screen door, still holding the munchkins, he said, “Ms. Tremont, if it so pleases you, would you accompany us to Brenda’s where I plan on giving your most lovely daughters a valuable lesson on true nutrition?”

  After giving him what he now recognized as her most scathing look, she begrudgingly opened the door.

  Chapter Nine

  “Wow,” Cassie said, catching the cascading sheet of chocolate from her dip cone before it landed on her clean shirt. “This is good—I’ve never had one before—but hazardous.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said, licking the edge of his cone to catch stray drips. He eyed the babies who were sound asleep in their carriers. “I thought they’d like a cone, too, but I guess this mission was a little premature.”

  “You think?” She shot him a grin.

  “Well, hey, at least one good thing came out it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I got you to try another form of junk food, and from the looks of it, you’re enjoying it.”

  “Am not,” she said though an extra-large, wafer-thin section of chocolate.

  Noah swallowed hard even though he currently didn’t have a drop of ice cream in his mouth.

  Cass had closed her eyes on her lick around the cone. In the process driving him wild with her darting pink tongue. He squeezed his eyes shut. What the woman did to him with just one of those innocent smiles should be criminal.

  “Noah?”

  “Huh?”

  “You okay?”

  “Ah, sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know, but while you’ve been staring at me, your ice cream just dripped down your sleeve.”

  “Aw, hell,” he said, eyeing the goopy spill. Snatching a wad of napkins from the dispenser on the table, he said, “Guess my mind was a million miles away.”

  “Thinking ’bout work?”

  I wish! “Nah…Just stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  Oh, things like how much I’d like to try kissing you again, but how you being a new mommy and all, makes you off limits. And how I have no right to even be thinking such impure thoughts, but that lately, I can’t seem to help it.

  He shrugged. “You know. Stuff.”

  “Sure.” She licked again.

  “What?” he asked when she still hadn’t wiped that stricken look from her face.

  “I miss you, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean? I’m right here.”

  Finishing off her cone, she shook her head. “You haven’t been with me since the first time we kissed.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Aw, geez.” He looked across the room to see Zane up to his usual no good. Using a pocketknife, he was painstakingly carving something into Brenda’s varnished oak tabletop. Around these parts, a right of passage. Shoot, Noah had his own name linked with Vicki Hayes’s inside the confines of a crudely carved heart over on table fifteen. But seeing how Zane was already carrying a full load of trouble, and his fingertips were still stained neon green from the spray paint that’d been used to give the bronze statue of Riverdale’s first mayor a new toupee, and seeing how Cass’s invasive stare had long since put him on edge, he said, “Hang tight. Duty calls.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, following his gaze.

  “See that kid?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s trouble.”

  Just as Noah slid out of the booth, Zane looked up, knife still in hand.

  Easing past the chairs of the few thankfully oblivious afternoon diners, Noah slid onto the booth seat across from Zane, and before the boy knew what hit him, he took the knife from his hand, folded it, then raised up to slip it into his right front pocket.

  “Hey!” Zane protested. “You can’t do that.”

  “Just did.”

  “Yeah, well, my daddy’s gonna come down here and kick your—”

  “Tough words considering right about now your daddy’s prob’ly downing his sixth beer of the day.”

  “Go to hell,” the boy snarled. “And while you’re at it, mind your own damned business.”

  “Be glad to, only at the moment, you carvin’ up Brenda’s table is kinda my business.”

  Zane rolled his dark eyes. “Everybody knows you done the same and worse.”

  “That make it right?”

  He shrugged.

  Noah leaned closer. “Tell you something else I’ll bet you don’t know. Unlike you, Brenda caught me carving up her table. I had to wash dishes for her after school for two months or Sheriff Bowles promised to lock me up.”

  “Shows just how dumb you were.” Unscrewing the lid on the salt shaker, Zane put a napkin over it, then flipped it upside down before sliding the napkin out. “Hell, I’d have to steal a car to end up in a juvie home—maybe even knock off a bank. And there’s nobody round here smart enough to make charges stick.”

  Noah closed his eyes and sighed. “You are one tough cookie.”

  “Damned straight.”

  “It ever occur to you that seeing how I used to be just like you, I know you?”

  “Here we go.” Now the kid was rolling his eyes. “This the part of your speech where you turn all shrink on me? Zap me with reverse psychology?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Brenda delivered Zane’s order of fries and a Coke. “Everything all right here?” she asked, eyeing Noah.

  “Peachy,” Noah said, snatching a wad of the kid’s fries.

  “Hey!”

  “Like being robbed, do ya?”

  “You see that?” he asked Brenda.

  “See what?” she asked, already on her way back to the kitchen.

  “This is police harassment,” the kid said. “My daddy’s gonna be on you like fly on—”

  “Watch it,” Noah said, voice lethally low. “There are ladies and children present.”

  “Like I give a rat’s—”

  “Stop. Stop the whole tough guy routine. Stop acting like you don’t care that your dad’s a drunk and your mother killed herself the night you
made your first soccer goal.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Stop acting like it doesn’t matter your girl, Heidi, is dating Eric Denton, even though she went with you all through ninth grade.”

  “Screw you. You don’t know sh—”

  Noah slapped his palms on the table, rattling the ice in Zane’s Coke. “What I know is that it’s high time you grew up. Yeah, life’s dealt you some pretty crappy blows, but then I can’t count on one hand the number of folks round here leadin’ fairy-tale lives.”

  “Boo, freakin’, hoo.” Gaze bored and glassy, Zane leisurely chewed a fry.

  BACK AT Noah’s house, while Cassie was still unfastening Hope’s car seat, Noah already held Noelle in his arms, and was almost to the front door. By the time Cassie caught up to him, he was in the sun-flooded kitchen, staring at the open fridge. “What’re you looking for?” she asked, cradling Hope close. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Doubt it,” he said, slamming the door.

  “Ready to talk about it?”

  “’Bout what?”

  “Whatever’s been eating you since we left Brenda’s. Does it have something to do with that kid?”

  He turned away from her, but she put her hand on his shoulder, urging him back. “Please don’t shut me out,” she said. “For better or worse, we’re roomies. If I can, I’d like to help.”

  “Forget it. The kid’s unredeemable.”

  “He’s that far gone?”

  “Yep.” Toying with one of Noelle’s red curls, he said, “I might feel different if I had my own kid. I might know what to do. Where to start. As is, I—” He shrugged. “I’ve gotta catch a few winks before work. You all right?”

  “Sure.” It’s you I’m worried about.

  “Cool.” In the living room, he eased a sleeping Noelle into her portable carrier and fastened her safety harness.

  “No,” Cassie said, doing the same with Hope. “Now that I’ve had a second to think about it, it’s not cool. And we never did finish our conversation from back at Brenda’s.”

  “I’m bone tired,” he said with a put-upon sigh. “Can’t all of this wait until later?”

  “No. Right now, tell me why you’re so standoffish. Tell me what it is about that kid that’s got you so tense that little muscle keeps popping in your jaw.” She touched it. “There. Just then. Did you feel that?”

  Reaching up, Noah covered her fingers with his own, pressing them into his cheek. What I feel is you touching me, emotions I’m not equipped to handle bearing down on me.

  “That popping is a sign,” she said. “Means you’re too tense. You need a release.” She slipped her fingers out from under his, then stepped behind him, easing her thumbs into his aching shoulders and neck. “See? You’re a brick wall.”

  Eyes closed, Noah surrendered to the liquid warmth her nimble fingers poured through him. In his mind, he saw her full lips wrapping round the N in his name. Imagined the feel of her breasts mounding against his chest. And it was then he found the real meaning of the word release by easing around to take Cass into his arms. Lift her effortlessly off of her feet with one arm around her hips, the other under the heavy fall of her hair, pressing his lips to hers.

  “Mmm…” she groaned.

  Yes, he silently said. Give me release. Release me from my job frustrations. From all of the things in my life I’ve always wanted changed, but have been powerless to do a damned thing about. From the loneliness that until meeting you, I hadn’t even realized had been so bad.

  She mewed beneath him, and he deepened the kiss still, parting her lips with his tongue, tasting the hint of vanilla ice cream still lingering on the damp pillow of her breath.

  This was insanity.

  This kissing her, this wanting her, yet he physically could not stop.

  “Noah,” she said, driving him further over the edge just whispering his name.

  On a ragged groan, he returned his angel to her feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that. Would never ordinarily do that. But I’m tired, and…”

  Her slight, quivering hand again cupping his cheek, she said, “What if I wanted you to do that?”

  “Then you’d be wrong.”

  “Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

  “No.” Hell, no.

  Because I know I’m right. You deserve a good man. A family man who doesn’t have my hang-ups over the institution of marriage. And there, for the first time in his adult life, he’d actually thought the word without stuttering, meaning his convictions to steer clear of her—and all women—had to be right.

  “No? Would you listen to yourself? You might be the law around this town, Noah Wheeler, but that doesn’t give you jurisdiction over my heart.”

  Heading to his room for a cold shower, he said, “It was just a kiss, Cass. It had nothing to do with your heart.”

  Cassie started to follow him, but stopped herself at the start of the hall.

  He was right.

  She knew the perils involved with opening her heart. Just like she knew it was high time she give up on this fantasy world of Noah being her protector, and once and for all see this picture for the way it really was.

  All they shared other than that one insanely intimate moment on the side of a lonesome highway was a roof over their heads.

  In a few days, her car would be fixed and she’d be safely back in Little Rock, never to see him again.

  “HE STRUCK AGAIN, Sheriff, and this time I want justice.” Floyd stood with his legs spread, hands fisted on his hips beside a smoldering pile of debris that had once been one of his best outbuildings. A pile of beer cans and broken wine bottles further attested to Zane’s wild night. The whole mess stank beneath the glare of hot morning sun—and Noah wasn’t just talking about the souring booze.

  He rubbed his aching neck.

  “You hear me, and hear me well,” Floyd said, spindly index finger poking Noah’s chest. “That boy’s a menace who’s got to be stopped. While you been over to your house playin’ nursemaid to that gaggle of gals, I’ve been—”

  “Don’t touch me,” Noah growled. “And as for what I do in my free time, that’s my business.”

  “Unless it takes your mind off the thugs terrorizing innocent hardworking folks. Where were you last night when you were supposed to be looking over my place?”

  Noah clenched his teeth.

  Where had he been? Sleeping. In all the hubbub over getting the twins settled—not to mention trying to forget the havoc their momma was wreaking upon his heart, Noah had forgotten to set his alarm.

  “You lock that boy up tight, Sheriff. Lock him up, or as long as there’s breath in my body, I’ll see to it you never win another election.”

  BONE TIRED, Noah pulled into his driveway later that morning planning on heading straight back to bed. He creaked open the door of his SUV, eased his feet out and stood, slamming the door shut. The noise echoed through the still-quiet neighborhood where the only sounds besides a few chirping swallows were the shouts of the Jenson kids playing down the street and the swish of Obert Undem’s sprinkler.

  He yawned, easing his face back to catch the sun, and when he was again looking straight, he saw her.

  Cass.

  Sitting sideways on his porch swing, painting her toenails. Looking prettier than any woman had the right to in another of her seemingly endless supply of black sundresses. The garment had risen up, and if he’d allowed his gaze to stray where it truly wanted to go, he’d have spied the barest hint of black panties hugging the sweet curve of her behind. She wore her hair in a neat ponytail, and his mind strayed again, wondering what she’d look like with that red silk she called hair all messy and buck wild.

  “Hey,” she said, her sleepy smile warming him a thousand times more than the sun.

  “Hey, yourself. Those babies of yours let you rest?”

  “A little,” she said, covering a small yawn. She laughed. “Okay, maybe very little.”

  “You look pretty
,” he said because he was tired and couldn’t stop himself. Lazy rays of sun glinted fire off of the red in her hair. “And I like those hot pink toes.” And I’d like ’em even better had I painted them myself while you lounged all satisfied and lazy in the tub after we’ve just made love.

  “Thanks,” she said, giving them a saucy wriggle. “I’m trying to steal a little time for myself in between all those diaper changes.” She strained to reach the last few toes on her left foot.

  “I’m glad,” he said, taking the polish and brush thingee from her. “Here, let me help.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  The toes he painted didn’t turn out quite as perfect as hers, but they didn’t look all bad even if he did say so himself.

  “Hungry?” she asked, patting the empty portion of the seat beside her as he screwed the lid on the polish, then handed it to her.

  “Nah.” He eased onto the swing. “I grabbed a breakfast burrito at Brenda’s.”

  “Mmm, sounds healthy.” She winked.

  Grinning, he shrugged.

  From behind the screen door, one of the babies cried. “Oops,” she said, putting her palm on his bum knee for leverage as she hobbled off of the swing. “Duty calls.”

  “That would be Noelle,” he said, following her into the house with a wince. “And from the sounds of it, she needs a new diaper.”

  “And you know this how?” she asked on their way down the hall.

  “I’m their daddy. I should know.”

  Even though there’d been a humorous note in his tone, Cassie bit her tongue to keep from snapping her usual retort. Once they reached the babies, and Noah saw for himself that he didn’t know everything there was to know about the pink duo, he’d be properly reminded that he was no more their daddy than he was the state’s governor!

  But then she entered the bedroom, setting her polish on the dresser before kneeling beside the blanket-lined drawer doubling as a crib. Noah had been right on one count—it was Noelle crying.

  Okay, so Cassie gave him bonus points for knowing Noelle’s voice, but as for that diaper bit, that was nuts. She was Noelle’s mother, and couldn’t yet tell which of her cries meant what.