Reunited with His Runaway Bride

by Robin Gianna

  “Just peachy.” Her voice was strained and tense, which wasn’t exactly a surprise.

  “Were you able to find—”

  The sight in his kitchen had him stopping dead. There were diapers strewn on the floor, and a spilled bottle lay on the kitchen counter, its liquid half dried on the granite. The little bouncy seat the store had insisted Will needed was knocked onto its side, but thankfully the boy wasn’t inside. Bree’s back was to him as she tapped away at a laptop on the counter in front of her with surprising ferocity considering she was using just one hand. At the same time, her whole body was swaying back and forth and bobbing up and down, and her rear end in skimpy orange shorts moving sexily all around was so distracting it briefly short-circuited his brain.

  “Uh, is something wrong?”

  “Something wrong?” She swung around, her hair flying into her face, a crying Will clutched close to her breast. “You tell me. I’ve fed him, changed him, sang to him, put him down, picked him up, but he’s still upset. I’m looking online for more ideas on how to help him calm down, but so far no go. Do you think he could be sick?”

  To his utter shock, the worried green eyes staring at him filled with tears. He’d never seen the woman anything but confident and completely together. He didn’t know what to do, but seeing her upset sent him practically running to her. “Bree, honey.” He swept her hair from her face, cupped her cheek in his palm and, without even thinking, pressed his lips to her forehead. The familiar scent of her filled his nose, overwhelming the smell of baby powder and formula, and he couldn’t pull away. Had to let his lips linger a moment to feel her skin. To breathe her in before he forced himself to step back and focus. “They just released him with a clean bill of health. I’m sure he’s fine. Don’t babies cry for no reason sometimes?”

  “Maybe. Probably. I’ve checked him out, of course, but Pediatrics gets called in when we have an infant in the ED. So what do I know?”

  “Pretty much everything when it comes to emergency medicine, that’s what.” He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to hold her close against him, to comfort this side of Bree he’d never seen before, but he knew doing that would just mess him up. Make him want things he couldn’t have. And the baby was the whole reason she was feeling this way, right? Since he’d badgered her to help, giving her the break she obviously needed made a lot more sense.

  He lifted Will from her arms and headed toward the back door, hoping a little quiet in the room would help her catch her breath, and being away from her would help him catch his. “I’m going to take him outside for a few minutes. Why don’t you sit down and take a break?”

  The eyes that met his were still wet and troubled, but she nodded as he walked the baby out the door and around the small backyard of his bayside home. To his surprise and relief, Will’s little face relaxed and he quit crying to look around, as though wondering what the heck that breeze was against his face and that bright thing in the sky was. “Well, how about that,” Sean said, feeling pretty proud of himself. After just a few laps around his short, springy grass, the child had gone fast asleep.

  He was a little afraid to take Will back inside for fear he’d wake up and the crying would start all over again and upset Bree, but he couldn’t stay out here indefinitely. Especially with a frustrated woman in the house who just might decide to grab the bag she hadn’t been too keen on packing to begin with and take off so fast she left skid marks in his driveway.

  The way she had after their breakup, when she’d stopped by for a nanosecond to pick up the few items she’d left at his house. That definitely was a day he never wanted to repeat. His chest tightened and his heart stepped up its pace at the thought, which was utterly stupid. As though her walking out the door now would be even close to that feeling six months ago. As if she’d shoved a scalpel through his chest, leaving him to bleed.

  Stupid though it might be, he hurried in anyway, and the relief he felt when he saw her still in the kitchen weakened his knees. “He’s asleep,” he whispered. “I’m going to put him in the bassinet thing they brought. Be right back.”

  When he tiptoed back into the kitchen after putting a knocked-out little Will into his bed, Bree was attacking the last of the spilled-bottle smears with fierce sponge wipes. Now that the crisis was over, the sight of her in his home doing everyday things brought all those mixed-up emotions back in full force. Disbelief at her conviction they were incompatible in too many ways. Anger at her overachieving stubbornness. The deep hurt as his hopes and dreams went up in burning flames, all stuffed down by logic and realism that they obviously just hadn’t been meant for one another the way he’d been sure they were.

  He let his gaze wander from her silkily disheveled hair, around that tempting derriere, and down to the long, gorgeous legs he used to love feeling wrapped around his back. He wanted to keep looking. He wanted to do a lot more than look, which ticked him off. Hadn’t he just been remembering all the ways he was still upset with her? All the reasons their relationship had been doomed from the beginning, before they’d realized that truth? How bad it had felt when it was over, and how hard he’d worked to get over her?

  Staring at her and wanting to grab her and kiss her at the same time he felt like yelling at her showed him loud and clear how awkward this was going to be. So awkward that the thought of calling that nanny service after all crossed his mind, only to be dismissed when he pictured how upset his mother would be. There wasn’t a human on earth with more ways to make someone feel guilty than his mom, and the challenge of handling one tiny baby had to be easier to deal with than that, didn’t it? Surely he and Bree could act like adults about being thrown together for just a day or two.

  “Seems we might have a solution to crying that’s not fixed by food or sleep,” he said, proud that he’d kept his tone light and casual. “If he’s inside we take him out, and if he’s outside we bring him in. Easy-peasy.”

  Bree swung around the same way she had before, but the green eyes that pinned his this time weren’t worried or teary anymore. They were filled with the kind of unflinching determination he’d seen in them many times. Times when she’d faced a big wave, or a skilled tennis opponent, or a difficult case at the hospital. Tough and determined and indomitable. He knew it would be nearly impossible to find someone like her again, and a heavy feeling pulled at his lungs. “Easy for you, apparently. And I’ll remember your technique. I’m sorry I didn’t handle things very well with him today, but I promise I’ll do better until your mother takes over.”

  “You handled things fine. Alive and well and now sleeping are all that’s required.”

  “Think there’s a little more to it than that, but thanks for not telling me I’m completely inept.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” Ultra Type A Bree demanded perfection of herself at everything she did, so he should have realized that was part of why she’d been so upset. “You’ve never been inept at anything in your life. Maybe you’ve forgotten it takes time to learn new things, even if you are Ms. Perfection Bree Donovan.”

  “I’ve never pretended to be Ms. Perfection.” An insulted scowl replaced her resolute expression.

  “Haven’t pretended to be, but demanded it of yourself to the point of ridiculous. I never understood why your work and your event wins were just never enough for you. Nobody’s perfect, Bree. But if a human could be, you would be.” Which was the truth, and just one of the reasons he hadn’t yet figured out how to make his life work without her.

  “You must think I have your laundry done and a nice hot dinner in the oven, too, then, after caring for Will all afternoon. Your definition of perfection, right?” Her voice was suddenly tight and sarcastic, and he hated to hear it.

  “Come on, Bree.” Was she really going to dredge all that up again? “That was your twisted version of what I said I wanted. Wanting kids doesn’t mean I expect my wife to stay home and wait
on me. I know your work is important to you. That surfing and competing is important, too. Didn’t I show you I believe a couple should be a team in everything? Including child care and house stuff? I don’t want to hear again what a—”

  Her cool fingers pressed against his lips as she grimaced. “I’m sorry. Really. I don’t know where that came from—just bubbled up from being around you again, I guess. It’s history, over and done with, and there’s no point in talking about it.” The smile on her face was forced, but it was better than the disdain that had been there a few seconds ago. “How about we sit down and go over our work schedules for the next couple days and figure out a plan?”

  “Good idea.” He sucked in a breath. Apparently he wasn’t the only one feeling unwelcome emotions about their past. Too many different kinds, and he focused on tamping them down as he turned to the small desk in his kitchen to grab a piece of paper and pen to give her. “Have a seat at the table and write yours down while I make some coffee.”

  “All the coffee you drink is going to give you an ulcer one of these days. Though I’m not going to nag you about it, since I bet you need even more than usual with all that’s gone on. Of course, I don’t have a right to nag you anyway. I mean, I guess I never did, but—” She stopped and shook her head, sucking in a breath that had his attention shifting to the outline of her bra. The contour of her breasts in the thin white T-shirt she wore, and the memories of exactly how she looked under that fabric, had him sucking in a deep breath of his own. “Anyway. How is Emma? I feel bad that I was so worried about Will I forgot to ask.”

  The rueful apology and slight embarrassment in her eyes had him nearly reaching to cup her cheek in his hand, and he shoved his hands into his scrub pockets. How she managed to infuriate him, turn him on, then soften his heart in a span of sixty seconds, he had no idea, but he had to somehow steel himself against all of it. “She’s still critical, but stable. Everyone is cautiously optimistic that she can be taken off the vent soon.”

  Making the coffee was a welcome distraction. He sent up a prayer about his sister’s recovery, and a second one along with it. Asking for his mother to get here soon, before he ended up doing something he’d regret. Like shouting at Bree about her unbelievable attitudes, or kissing her until they were both senseless the way he had on the hospital roof, or both.

  “Cream and sugar with a little coffee,” he said as he pulled a mug from the cupboard, “though I still don’t get the point of drinking it that way.”

  “It’s dessert with a little caffeine. Which is normal, though a guy who’s still trying to figure out a way to inject coffee straight into his veins wouldn’t understand that.”

  She glanced up at him with a cute smile, then quickly down as he set her coffee in front of her on the table, making sure it wasn’t too close to the shimmer of hair covering half her face as she scribbled on the paper. Out of old habit, he nearly reached to tuck it behind her ear until he saw the stiffness of her shoulders, the wary look in her eyes as she glanced at him again with a deep crease between her brows.

  Reminding him again—as if he should need any reminding—that things weren’t like they used to be. That they never would be. Which was okay. It was.

  And if he said it often enough, maybe he’d eventually believe it.

  He sat a safe distance across from her and concentrated on pulling up his schedule on his phone. “You already know I’m on call. Is it possible for you to stay here tonight, in case I have to go in? I know it’s a lot to ask of you. But I’m off tomorrow, starting in the morning.”

  “That’ll work out, since I have to leave here at seven a.m.”

  It struck him that she’d be in bed in his house, without him in it with her, and had a bad feeling that would result in a long, torturous night without enough sleep. He tried to distract himself from picturing her all warm and soft in his guest bed by writing down his work hours, until his nephew’s lungs and vocal cords went into action again. He and Bree lifted their heads at the exact same time, and something about the way they both froze at the sound, their eyes widening, seemed to strike them both as funny.

  Bree laughed softly and shook her head. “Pretty pathetic that two educated adults are scared of a tiny infant. Babies have been showing up in people’s lives for millennia. We can handle this.”

  “This from the woman who was about at her wit’s end not long ago, doing the Watusi in my kitchen to try to quiet him.”

  “It wasn’t the Watusi. It was the hula with maybe a little Macarena thrown in.”

  How he’d missed those amused, twinkling green eyes. Before he could get lost in them all over again, he shoved his chair back to check on Will and see what he could be upset about now. “I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll come with you. I need to learn what to do with him.”

  “First day of Baby Care 101 for both of us. Problem is, the professor’s absent.”

  Will’s tiny arms and legs were jerking around as Sean reached to pick him up. “Did you change his diaper?”

  “Yes, but probably an hour ago. I fed him, too, though he spit some up. I don’t suppose the baby store, or the nurses in NICU, gave you a baby manual?”

  He glanced at her, and swore she looked serious. “Baby manual? If there is such a thing, I want it. But I have a bad feeling that, right now, we’re on our own.” Her crestfallen expression made him grin in spite of everything. “I guess we’ll try those two things again, then take him outside if they don’t work.”

  “Sounds like as good a plan as any I came up with,” she said with that rueful twist of her lips back in place.

  “We’re both playing this by ear, Ms. Perfection, so stop expecting us to do this right until we learn how.”

  “Your mom will be back before I’m even close to learning how.”

  Probably true. And the sooner she got here, the better, with this strange awkwardness between him and Bree, bantering like old times one minute, then stiffening up, reminded of the bad way things had ended and how they didn’t much like each other anymore.

  Or something like that.

  He heaved a sigh, then laid Will on the changing table he’d bought, thankful he’d pretty much quit crying, for the moment at least. Maybe he’d just wanted attention. The baby gazed up at him, and his little round face made Sean smile, in spite of everything.

  “Seems a little pointless to put clothes on newborns,” Bree said, tipping her head as she studied Will. “I mean, why not just keep them wrapped in a blanket or something? He’s kind of a little blob at the moment, with his legs wanting to curl up like he’s still inside Emma. Don’t you think it’s hard to get him dressed? And undressed then dressed again?”

  “Yeah. But I can’t risk having my mother show up early to a naked baby. I’d never hear the end of it.” Bree’s laughing eyes met his before he wrestled the knit pants off and over Will’s tiny feet, opened the kid’s diaper to remove it, then grabbed a new one from the pile on the table. “No BM, but it is wet. Maybe that’s what was bothering him.”

  “I’m impressed,” Bree said, and that twist of her lips mingled with a surprising admiration. Surprising because he sure didn’t deserve it. “No one would know you were new at this.”

  “You always said I was a quick learner.”

  “True. Though learning tennis seems a whole lot easier than this.”

  “Only when you’re a superstar, like you. I had to take those damned private lessons for weeks before I could regularly get the ball back across the net to you.”

  “You took lessons? Other than from me?” Her wide-eyed stare had him cursing himself for making that little confession. She was so good at everything she did, he hadn’t wanted to look inept, even though she’d known he’d been a beginner. The first time she’d offered to teach him, his competitive nature had kicked in—probably his ego, too—and now she knew he wasn
’t just naturally gifted at whacking a ball across a net.

  “Maybe a lesson or two.” He turned back to the diapering, frowning a little as he tried to figure out the sticky tabs, because they didn’t seem to be working right.

  “Um, I take back what I said.” She pointed at the stack of diapers. “I think the picture on the diaper is supposed to be in the front, not the back.”

  He had to laugh. That should have been obvious, but he blamed the distraction of Bree being so close, and that admiring look on her face that had made his chest stupidly puff up a little, though she was sure as heck grinning at him now instead. The admiring look that had made him feel like Superman when they’d been together.

  He slid the diaper from under the baby’s bottom to try again, leaning over to study the sticky tabs, only to be startled by a stinging spray right into his eye. “Yikes!” he yelped, yanking his head back from the stream of urine now hitting his chest as Bree’s laughter filled the room. “Can you please help instead of cracking up at my expense?”

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped in the middle of another peal of laughter, though at least she grabbed a towel from the rack and began to wipe his face. “But that was about the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Are we keeping score? Because right now, I think it’s Will five, and you and me zero.”

  “Yeah. And we have to turn that around.” He managed to get the diaper closed and secured as Bree moved the towel down to wipe at his shirt. The feel of her massaging his chest, and never mind that her touch was brisk and not at all sensual, made him breathe a little harder. He grabbed the towel from her, deciding he’d better get his shirt changed before the massaging made worse things happen to him than getting short of breath.