The Baby Wore a Badge

by Marie Ferrarella

  With effort, he tried to organize his brain and focus—what was it about this pint-size human being that could make him unravel so quickly?

  “I’ll be right back,” he told Marlie, momentarily leaving her in the portacrib he’d set up in the living room. Marlie continued wailing.

  Striding toward the front door in giant steps, Jake threw it open. His initial intent was to send whoever was on the other side away, after he got them to stop leaning on his doorbell.

  “What the hell—”

  He got no further.

  The rest of the chastising words died on his tongue before being spoken. In place of the hot words came cool relief. The cavalry had mysteriously arrived on his doorstep without even being summoned.

  “Calista!”

  On the way over, she’d felt a little self-conscious about coming here after her shift at the mayor’s office had ended. She’d actually debated turning back and just going home instead at least twice. Granted that before leaving this morning, Erin had called and asked her to look in on Jake and the baby, but since that incident with Fowler—who hadn’t fired her after all—Jake had taken to calling and having her come over, either to watch the baby or just help out with her. That meant that he wasn’t self-conscious about asking for her help. If she just showed up like this, he might start thinking of her as being too pushy. That in turn, she thought, could lose her all the ground she’d earned in the last couple of weeks.

  But while she didn’t want to take a chance on that happening, some kind of inner instincts, a gut feeling, had made her overlook all that and show up on Jake’s doorstep anyway.

  She just hoped she was right.

  The moment he opened the door, her concern about appearing pushy evaporated. The look on his face—and the plaintive cries coming from inside the house—told her she’d made the right call in coming here.

  She didn’t even get the chance to tell Jake that Erin sent her, asking her to look in on him. Calista barely opened her mouth before he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the house.

  “I think she’s sick,” he cried without a single word of preamble or greeting. There was a thread of fear running through each word he uttered.

  “Is she throwing up?” was Calista’s first question as she followed him into the house.

  Aware that he was squeezing it too hard, Jake let go of her wrist.

  “No, but she doesn’t want to eat and she hasn’t been herself all day. At first she was just listless, but now she’s cranky and crying. And she’s hot,” he concluded, his voice growing loud at his final pronouncement.

  Calista smiled to herself. At less than a year old, the casual childless observer would have said that a baby didn’t yet have enough of a personality to allow someone to saying that she wasn’t “acting like herself.” But Jake no longer belonged to that class. He was neither childless nor a casual observer, not anymore. He was now talking like a father, like a real father. Despite his concerns to the contrary, and his initial feelings of inadequacy, he’d made the transition nicely.

  “What else did you observe?” she asked him as they walked into the living room.

  His eyes swept over Marlie in the crib, then shifted over to her, but only for a moment. Marlie owned all his attention. “She’s been crying a lot. More than usual.”

  Calista heard a lot in his voice. She heard the helplessness he was feeling, plus the frustration. Dealing with him in the last month, she’d come to learn that Jake Castro was a fixer. He liked to make things right and this was something beyond his scope to fix. Just as Maggie’s death had been something that was beyond his scope to fix.

  Feeling frustrated like this just reinforced his sense of helplessness, which also fed on his exasperation. It was a vicious cycle.

  “And she’s hot,” he repeated as she bent over the crib to pick up Marlie.

  Calista made her own quick assessment.

  “Warm,” she corrected, using the same method to check Marlie’s temperature as he had. She brushed her lips against the baby’s forehead. Definitely warm, not hot, she thought again. Then, holding the baby, she looked at him expectantly. “What else?” she pressed again.

  He stared at her, confused. What was she fishing for? Why weren’t they getting into his car and going to the hospital?

  “What do you mean, ‘what else’? Isn’t that enough?” he demanded, then said the obvious. “She’s not supposed to be running a fever.”

  For now she decided to spare him the little talk about how children up to the age of about seven were prone to running fevers, sometimes twice in one day, having it go up, then down, then up again and quite possibly down again, too. All mercifully without damage. Usually.

  He didn’t need that kind of information now. She, on the other hand, did need information. Information he hadn’t given her yet and that he possibly didn’t even know he had, if it existed.

  “You’re a policeman, Jake. Think like one.” It was more of an order than a coaxing request. “What else did you notice about Marlie today? Or possibly last night? Think,” she repeated.

  He didn’t know what she was fishing for, which only fueled his exasperation, making it grow. “What else is there?” he demanded.

  She thought of the baby’s age. And the toothless grin she usually sported. She hadn’t wanted to put words into Jake’s mouth, but there seemed to be no other way. “Has she been drooling?”

  He shrugged. “She always drools,” he said. “She’s a baby. She’s messy.”

  There was messy, and then there was messy. “More than usual?”

  He scowled as he thought, trying to remember. He supposed it had seemed a little excessive to him now that he thought about it. “You could say that. Why?”

  Calista didn’t answer his question. Instead, she fired off another one of her own. “Has Marlie been shoving her fist into her mouth even when she’s not hungry?”

  Again, he stopped to think for a second. “Yeah, okay, she’s done that,” he conceded. Concern trumped frustration. “What’s it mean?”

  Instead of answering, Calista turned on her heel and made her way into the kitchen, still carrying Marlie in her arms. Jake followed in her wake, firing questions at her that went unanswered.

  “Here, hold her for a minute,” she requested when they reached the sink.

  As he watched, not knowing what to make of any of this, Calista washed her hands. “What are you going to do?” he wanted to know.

  “Put her over your shoulder,” she instructed. Standing on her toes—he was a tall man, she couldn’t help thinking—she proceeded to put one finger into the baby’s mouth and felt around.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded again, this time with more authority.

  Finding what she wanted, Calista grinned and withdrew her finger. She had her answer for him.

  “Congratulations, Office Castro. You are no longer the father of a toothless baby. Your little girl is growing up.” She smiled up into what was possibly the handsomest baffled face she’d ever seen. “Marlie is cutting her first tooth.”

  That was impossible. “She’s too young for teeth,” he protested.

  “Apparently not,” she contradicted. “Mine, my mother told me, started coming in when I was four months old. She claimed it went along with the fact that I was born talking.”

  A tooth? All this fuss over a tooth? Then why was Marlie running a fever? Was that typical? “So I don’t have to take her to the emergency room?” he asked uneasily.

  “Only if you have your heart set on a long drive and a longer wait.” The look in her eyes went a long way toward reassuring him. “She’ll be fine, Jake, really. All babies go through this. It’s not pleasant for them—or us—but they do survive. In the meantime, give her something cold to suck on. It’ll help ease the pain.” He still looked lost, so she gave him a suggestion. “Does she have any teething rings?”

  He thought of all the things he’d found in Maggie’s apartment that she’d bought for the
baby. He’d just thrown everything into boxes and taped them up when he’d moved here, thinking he could sort everything out later. He was still sorting.

  “I think I saw one in one of the boxes,” he recalled.

  It beat sending him into town to the supermarket. “Go hunt it up for me. Meanwhile I’ll see if I can distract our princess until you find it.”

  He nodded, hurrying away.

  He was probably too distracted to realize she’d slipped and referred to Marlie as “our” princess, Calista thought.

  She crossed her fingers and fervently hoped she was right.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You really look worn out,” Calista observed when she dropped onto the sofa beside Jake some two and a half hours later. Marlie had finally, finally settled down and fallen asleep, hopefully for at least a few precious hours. “A little like you’ve been wrestling alligators all day.”

  “I kind of feel that way, too,” Jake confessed. He felt completely drained as he took in a deep breath and then let it out again.

  He did sound as if he’d been through the wringer at least twice over, she thought, as her heart went out to him. “Well, there’s good news. I think Marlie’s finally dropped off to sleep.”

  “If she did, it’s all thanks to you,” he said gratefully. “You did the lion’s share of walking the floor with her.” He couldn’t help wondering where she got all that energy from. Right now, he’d give anything to be able to tap into it as well. As it was, he was struggling to try to pull himself together. If he didn’t, he was liable to fall asleep on her in mid-sentence. “What you are,” he informed her, “is a godsend.”

  She allowed herself to savor the compliment for a split second before shrugging it off. “I don’t know about that. I’m more of an Erin-send.” When Jake shifted in his seat to look at her quizzically, she explained, “Erin called to tell me that she and Corey were going out of town for the weekend and she asked me to please look in on you after work, whether or not you called.” Which did bring a question to mind. Sitting up, she turned to face him squarely. “Why didn’t you call?” He’d clearly been distressed about Marlie when she’d appeared on the doorstep.

  He’d thought about calling her. More than once. But he could be stubborn when he wanted to be and he wanted to try to handle this himself. After all, Marlie was his daughter, which made her his responsibility, not Calista’s.

  “I didn’t want to keep bothering you.”

  In light of the fact that they did have a business arrangement of sorts, that really didn’t make any sense to her. “You pay me every time I come over to watch her. How could asking me to come by to look in on Marlie possibly ‘bother’ me?”

  “You do have a life,” he pointed out. “If you have to keep running over every time I need you, you won’t be able to live it.”

  Didn’t he understand that by coming over to help take care of Marlie she was living her life? That this was something she was good at and enjoyed doing? Not to mention that more than half the time, he was around for the duration as well. Being here allowed her to talk to him and enjoy his company under the pretext of babysitting his daughter.

  “Taking care of that little girl is part of my life,” she told him. Then, for good measure, she added, “My life is what I choose it to be, and I choose to help you out with Marlie. I choose to be around that little person to do what I can so that things go a little bit more smoothly for both of you.” She looked at him pointedly, trying to make him see that she wasn’t some lightweight who could be easily overwhelmed and didn’t possess a backbone to speak of. “Next time, if you need me, pick up the damn phone and call. If I can’t come, I’ll tell you I can’t come. Don’t try to second-guess me.”

  “You’ve never told me that you couldn’t come,” he reminded her. And he didn’t know if that was because she was actually free or if she was afraid of turning him down when he called.

  “Because,” she said simply, “so far, that hasn’t come up.”

  And she doubted that it ever would, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Instincts told her that not everything needed to be spelled out at this point. Especially not because their relationship, such as it was, was still fresh and not quite formed.

  She was acutely conscious of the fact that Jake hadn’t kissed her since that one isolated time. So what did it all boil down to? Had the kiss been a fluke? A miscalculated accident on his part? Had he absolutely no desire to revisit the scene of the crime to see if perhaps it could get better?

  She really didn’t know what to think. There were times, like now, when she felt she was getting certain vibes from him, but that could be just a reflection of her wishful thinking, her own unanswered needs.

  She just didn’t know.

  Meanwhile, Jake was busy, thinking and carrying on a silent argument with himself. Frowning, he looked up at her. “You think Marlie might be upset because I moved her out?”

  The question had come at her out of the blue. It took Calista a couple of seconds to connect the dots and realize what he was referring to.

  “Are you talking about moving her into her own room?” At the beginning of the week, Erin had suggested that he might be able to get more sleep if he moved Marlie’s crib into the guest room next to his. It was her tactful way of telling him that he was beginning to look like one of the walking undead.

  “That can only be a good thing,” Calista assured him. “This way, you don’t lie in bed, listening to every breath she takes and Marlie gets used to having her own space.”

  Jake still looked concerned and somewhat unconvinced. Calista smiled, shaking her head. Jake was obviously one of the good ones.

  “She’s right in the room next to you, Jake,” she reminded him. “It’s not like you sent her off to live on the East Coast.”

  No, but that was what Maggie’s parents wanted him to do. Send his daughter off with them and they had a home that was way across the country.

  Get a grip, he sternly ordered himself.

  Calista was right. He was being too overprotective. He never used to be like that, he thought. But after what happened to Maggie, he’d had gone through a crisis of conscience. Still, he recognized being so overprotective had to be grating on the nerves.

  “You probably think I’m an idiot,” he told Calista. His words were accompanied by a defensive shrug.

  “I think,” she began slowly, contradicting him, “that you are a kind, patient, loving man who’s trying to learn all the different facets of being a father all at once. You’re demanding too much of yourself. This kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight.”

  He was grateful to her. As usual, she’d made him feel better. “You’ve got a way of putting a good spin on everything.”

  “I have a way of seeing more than you do,” she amended.

  Despite his preoccupation, he’d begun to notice something. A pattern was emerging. “You know you have a habit of deflecting compliments?”

  She drew herself up a little, unconsciously growing defensive. “No, I don’t.”

  His eyes held hers as his mouth curved. “You’re beautiful.”

  Where had that come from? She’d never thought of herself in that light. “No, I’m not.”

  It had been a test. Never mind that he was being truthful and actually meant what he’d just said about her looks. She’d reacted exactly the way he’d expected her to.

  “See?” he said. “You’re deflecting.”

  “And you’re delusional—” She paused as things fell together for her. “Unless you just made that up to prove a point.”

  “I was trying to prove a point,” he allowed. “But I also meant what I just said.” He repeated it in case there was any question as to what he was referring to. “Aside from being that godsend I mentioned earlier, you are beautiful.”

  His voice had dropped down several decibels and she could have sworn that he was all but caressing her with his voice as well as his eyes. She could feel excitement rippling throug
h her.

  Anticipation was rising up on tiptoes.

  “Just shows that you really are exhausted and desperately need to get some sleep,” she told him just a bit too flippantly. Despite what she’d just said, she was really hoping he wouldn’t agree and just go to sleep on her. She wanted to talk a bit longer, linger her a bit longer.

  “Not that exhausted. And I’ll say the same thing in the morning. Feel the same way in the morning,” Jake added softly. Very gently, he cupped her cheek, turning her head until she had no choice but to look up into his eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Calista,” he told her with feeling.

  “You have Erin,” she whispered.

  Even as she spoke, she could feel her insides begin to tremble, set in motion by the wave of intense yearning that had washed over her. She was trying to rein in her emotions, but even as she struggled, she knew it was a losing battle. She wanted him too much. Wanted to feel him wanting her too much.

  “Erin’s wonderful and I’m grateful to her for opening up her home to Marlie and me, but Erin has no more experience with babies than I do,” he pointed out patiently, wanting her to accept her due. It was important to him. “You’re the one with all the answers.”

  No, I’m not. I haven’t got a single answer as to what to do with these feelings I have for you.

  Out loud, Calista did what he’d come to expect. She denied his assertion. “No, I’m not.”

  “You’re doing it again,” he told her, moving in just a tad closer to her on the sofa. Moving in until their shadows merged into one. “You’re deflecting.”

  “Because you’re giving me too much credit,” she countered.

  He disagreed. “I’m just telling you the truth.” He smiled into her eyes. “You know, ‘the truth shall set you free,’ that kind of thing.”

  She could feel his smile go straight into her soul. The rest of her held its breath.

  Waiting.

  Hoping.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she heard herself saying. “Sometimes it just traps you instead. Better not to say anything and just play it by ear, take one step at a time.” Like I am with you, she added silently.