The One-Week Baby (Yours Truly)

by Gardner, Hayley

  Their laughter had once again caught the baby’s attention, and forgetting the rainbow of lights the chandelier cast, Teddy twisted and held out his arms to West.

  “Now he wants me,” West groaned. “Story of my life. Nobody ever wants me until it’s too late.”

  Annie’s heart skipped a beat. She wished she could tell him how much she wanted him now, but she couldn’t. He might think her desire meant she was willing to give up her dream for him, and how could she do that? The past few days with Teddy had fanned the spark into a full-blown fire again.

  She couldn’t say a word, and didn’t, but as he looked from Teddy up to her, and they gazed at each other for a long minute, there was a look in his eyes that said he wanted her there, and he was going to ask her to—”

  Stay,” he said, as though some magic had overtaken the two of them and they were reading each other’s thoughts. “Please stay, Annie. I meant what I said. It takes two people to make a child happy, and until Marcia comes back, we’re all Teddy’s got. I can’t give him up, and I don’t think you can, either.”

  Annie still didn’t know what to do. Thinking it out, she rose, took Teddy, and carried him back to the playpen.

  Even as West’s common sense told him having Annie in the same house with him five more days was going to be hell, something else inside of him was making him say, “C’mon, Annie, it’s a good idea.”

  Getting his mouth wired shut right now would be a good idea, too, he thought, but it was too late for that.

  “I don’t know, West.” A part of her wanted to remain, but another part of her was afraid of the attraction she was feeling toward West, both physical and mental. It was magnified now—what would it be like by Saturday? And what if Marcia didn’t come back like she promised? She could end up living here for a while, falling in love with a man who never wanted a wife or children.

  It would never work out between them.

  “Look,” West said, rising to face her, “we’re better as a team, right here. It’s not good for Teddy to be moved again, but even if you took him home, you’d need to investigate sitters, and that takes time. How are you going to handle him alone? And if he stays here with me, I’ve got the same problem. This way, we’re together enough to coordinate schedules without running around, and we can still work on your dream.”

  Her dream, Annie thought. A baby, a family, her career. Through some perversity, she was living it as they spoke—only this version had a man in it. Maybe somewhere out there another woman was short one man in hers. She looked up at West speculatively. Uhuh. She wasn’t giving him back. Not yet, anyway.

  “It’ll work out. Everything will,” West said, without believing it himself. As sure as he knew he couldn’t let her leave just yet, he also knew one or both of them was going to end up getting hurt. He’d better make damned sure it was him in the end. He could handle it. He could handle anything.

  It was the motto he lived by.

  “All right, West,” Annie said slowly. “I’ll stay.”

  8

  As Annie came down the stairs the next evening dressed to attend Gigi’s debut, West’s breath caught, and he cursed himself for the mistake of his life he was about to make. Annie wore a floral print dress that emphasized her delicacy and outlined every curve of her hips and small waist. As if its plunging neckline filled with white lace wasn’t enough to choke him, the dress buttoned down the front and the bottom two buttons were open. With every step Annie took, her thigh played peekaboo.

  She’d obviously picked the dress to torture him, and she didn’t even have a good reason—yet.

  “You aren’t dressed up,” Annie said when she reached the bottom of the steps and saw West still in his jeans and sport shirt. He couldn’t be attending Gigi’s debut dressed like that—which meant he didn’t plan to go at all. One look into his deep blue eyes verified it.

  “If you didn’t want to go, West, why on earth didn’t you just say so?” Shards of disappointment cut through her. She’d thought he cared, that he’d be there to help her bolster up Gigi if her aunt flopped.

  “The baby-sitter canceled.” Actually, West had called Gigi’s friend Miss Grinzy and told her not to come, that he had made other plans for Teddy that evening—which was true. Keeping in mind that he was supposed to be distancing himself from Annie while she was in his home, he’d decided a romantic evening at a bistro with Annie was out of the question. But since Annie still needed to go, he thought he would help her out with her dream by arranging her date to be with husband material.and he’d found her just the man.

  “But don’t worry,” he told her, pulling at his collar, which suddenly seemed too tight, “you aren’t going alone.”

  Annie’s mouth twisted. “I hope that means you have a clone.”

  “Some people think we’re equally good-looking.” The doorbell rang and, grinning, West hurried to answer it. By the goofy, pleased grin on his face, Annie thought, apparently he was no longer worried about women leaving babies on his doorstep.

  She paused in the living room doorway as he opened the front door. No baby this time. This time his visitor was a man—one right off the cover of GQ.

  “C’mon in, Rome,” West said. “I want you to meet Annie, your date for the evening. Annie, this is Rome. He’s a cop,” he added, shading his voice with a barely perceptible warning.

  With a rush of suddenness, Annie realized two things. First, Miss Grinzy hadn’t canceled, she’d gotten canceled, and second, Rome was there on purpose. He was part of West’s plan.

  Rome was a potential daddy.

  Clamping her lips shut, Annie extended her hand with a tight smile and, as they shook, said in one breath, “I’m pleased to meet you.” Pause. “West, we have to talk in the kitchen.”

  West looked reluctant. “But you two are going to be late if you waste any time—”

  “Now,” she said over her shoulder, already halfway through the living room.

  “Arguing with me,” West finished. He shot Roman Markham a lame smile—what could he do?—and followed Annie, closing the kitchen door so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Rome?” Annie asked in a quiet, rushed voice, her eyes bright with irritation. “You’re sending me out into the dark night on a romantic date with a guy who looks like a male model, but who is really a tall, dark and handsome cop named Rome?”

  “Did you want a blond?” West asked. “Because if you want a blond, we’re in trouble. I don’t have any blond friends.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Annie gave him her iciest stare. “I thought you didn’t trust cops.”

  “I don’t trust the system,” West said, very serious about that. “But as far as his dating you goes, you’re old enough to take care of yourself. Besides, Rome is a nice enough guy—” Stopping, he pretended to reconsider. “But then again, Annie, maybe I should warn him about you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He grinned. “He should be perfect for what you want. He’s not into attachments, and you want him to leave you alone after the deed is done, don’t you? His gene pool seems okay. He’s smart, and you just said he’s good-looking.”

  Annie whooshed out a breath to calm down. West was only trying to help, but his choosing the father of her baby felt too odd, so she fished around for an excuse for him to get rid of Rome.

  “I don’t trust great-looking men,” she said. There.

  “You trust me, don’t you?” West asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Why of course, West,” she said smoothly. When his face fell into a frown, she smiled wickedly. “Gotcha. I told you not to arrange dates for me.”

  “Like I said—” His eyes grazed over her with a potent look of concentration that made her shiver. “You can take care of yourself. So tell me why you really don’t want to give Rome a chance.”

  Annie’s hazel eyes glanced toward the door. “I don’t know.” But she did. She’d set her heart on West and he was already throwing her to the wolves. “Am I safe with
Rome?”

  “He’s a cop,” West reminded her in a hushed voice.

  She made a sound that resembled a groan. “How long have you known him?”

  “He sold me this house, and we’ve been friends ever since.” West grabbed her shoulders firmly enough that she looked him straight in the eyes. “Are you sure you want this dream of yours?”

  Feeling the heat of his hands through the thin sleeves of her dress, Annie’s insides began turning cartwheels and she couldn’t answer him at first. “Yes,” she said finally.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I want this dream. Only.” She knew she shouldn’t say this, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Only maybe you should know before I agree to this date. There is a name on the list of possible fathers you told me to write down, West.”

  “Who?” West asked, filled with dread. Another date he’d have to suffer through.

  “You,” she whispered, her hazel eyes huge. “I wish it could be you.”

  West swallowed, feeling the loss of her in every part of his body, especially his heart. “I wish it could be, too, Annie, but I can’t change what’s deep inside me.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Can’t,” he said firmly. “Could you give up your dream of having a baby and still be happy?”

  She hesitated for so long, West’s hope grew, but then she shook her head. “All right,” she said. “You win. I’ll give Rome a shot.” Squaring her shoulders, she gave West a brave grin, turned and headed toward the kitchen door. “Wish me luck.”

  Luck—in what? Figuring out what, West doublestepped to catch up with her. “How about two shots?” he asked, close to her ear so Rome couldn’t hear. “I mean, you’re not going to try anything on the first date, are you? Should I warn him?”

  “West,” she scolded, shaking her head at him. “You created this monster, now you’re going to have to live with it. And I don’t kiss and tell.” With a wiggle-wave of her fingers that reminded West of her aunt Gigi, she pushed through the kitchen door, leaving West behind.

  Had he made a mistake? West wondered. Surely she wouldn’t jump into bed with Rome just to get it over with tonight, would she? She wasn’t that desperate to get her dream started, was she?

  Hell.

  Teddy let out a wail, barring West from further speculation, and swearing under his breath, he hurried into the living room. Annie was picking up Teddy as he came in, cooing to him to get him to calm down.

  Rome was standing by the sofa, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I’m sorry if I scared him,” he said, shoving back the dark lanks of hair that had fallen onto his forehead. “All I did was come into the room when I saw Annie. Whose baby is it?”

  “He’s my nephew,” West lied before Rome asked any more questions. He couldn’t tell him about the baby in the basket, just in case Rome ceased being a friend and remembered he was part of the system. All Rome knew was that Annie was his friend and needed an escort to her aunt’s singing debut. “You two go along,” West added, taking Teddy from Annie. “He’ll be fine. You know where the Café Lauree is, right, Rome?”

  “I sure do,” Rome said over Teddy’s wails, holding out his arm for Annie, his handsome face serious. “You look lovely, Annie.”

  “I appreciate your saying so,” Annie replied, batting her eyelashes just to make West mad.

  It worked. Pangs of jealousy hit West with the sting of shotgun pellets as he rocked Teddy, and he told himself to be strong. This was what both he and Annie wanted. Yeah, right. Like he wanted a baby on his doorstep, he wanted Annie smiling that gentle smile of hers at Rome.

  Annie caught West’s scowl and purposely kissed Teddy and reached up to pat West’s cheek. “You two have fun. I will.”

  As soon as the door closed, West knew he wasn’t going to have any such thing. What he was going to do was spend the entire evening being miserable.

  Annie was obsessing, and she couldn’t stop herself. Her aunt Gigi was beside the piano in the Café Lauree, talking to the pianist before starting her final song. Rome had been wonderfully attentive and polite-if a little serious and reserved for her tastesbut all Annie could think about was West. No matter how good his intentions had been, how dare he pull a last-minute date switch on her! She set her lips tightly. She hoped her parting remarks had left him worrying all evening.

  Glancing around the café, Annie drank in the atmosphere of the newest hot spot in the city. Located on the outskirts of the French Quarter, it was minutes away from the market, Bourbon Street, and all the other attractions that made New Orleans so touristy popular. Aunt Gigi had called it a bistro, but it was really a nightclub with food. The menu was limited, but the seafood had been excellent. With its welldressed waiters and the piano player, the place actually had charm that provided a beautiful backdrop for the night’s star attraction, Gigi, glowing in her shimmering turquoise gown.

  The haunting strains of the love ballad Gigi started singing drew Annie’s attention back to her aunt. Not only was Gigi’s voice lovely, this song was beautiful, about love lost and never rekindled being as soft and fragile as butterfly wings. Annie had never heard it anywhere before, and as Gigi finished the number, she wondered if her aunt had written it.

  It didn’t matter if she had or hadn’t, Gigi was a success, and Annie joined wholeheartedly in the applause, tears of joy in her eyes. Her tears came with happiness—for both her aunt and herself. West had been right after all. Dreams were obtainable. Oh, she was no fool-Gigi changed dreams like she changed her hairstyle, regularly, according to whim. But all her aunt’s “dreams”—designing, painting, acting, and now singing—had pointed to one thing: Gigi wanted to be noticed and admired. From the enthusiastic way people were clapping, it looked like Gigi had somehow finally settled on the right way to make that dream come true.

  “She’s seen us,” Annie said to Rome as Gigi made her way through the crowd toward them. Both she and Rome stood to congratulate her.

  “My petite babee, you came!”

  Hearing the accent, Rome looked at Annie. “She’s from France?”

  “Everyone thinks that,” Annie said, and then opened her arms. “Aunt Gigi, I’m so proud of you!”

  Flushed with happiness, Gigi hugged Annie against her ample bosom and backed away, gazing at Rome. “We will talk of my success in a minute. For right now, I must know—who ees your handsome man, and what did you do with West Gallagher?”

  Annie introduced Rome as her date. “And to answer your second question,” she told Gigi, “I didn’t do anything to West.” Not that I don’t plan to later, she added silently. “He’s at home baby-sitting Teddy.”

  “And so the bet has ended, and you are not living—”

  “Excuse me,” Annie said to Rome, smiling at him as she spirited Gigi away to a less populated spot near the kitchen, where they’d be interrupted only by an occasional waiter. Giving her a thumbnail version of the newest developments, including that West was helping her with her dream of having a baby, she concluded, “West and Rome are friends, Aunt Gigi, but Rome is a cop. Since West didn’t want him to know the truth about Teddy in case Rome had to act on it, he lied to him.”

  “Aha! So the man you are in love with sent you out to ooh-la-la with his friend? I’m intrigued.”

  “I am not in love with West,” Annie said indignantly.

  “Then why are you still there? West can matchmake on the telephone.”

  “We’re just staying together until we can return Marcia’s baby,” she said softly. “I can’t abandon Teddy.”

  Gigi sniffed. “Malarkey,” she scoffed, every trace of her accent gone as tended to happen whenever she got serious. “That man can take care of that baby as well as you can.”

  “I know,” Annie said morosely. “I’m not myself, Aunt Gigi. Living with West has totally racked me. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.”

  “Sounds like love to me,” Gigi said, her eyes twinkling.

  Was it? No, i
t couldn’t be—could it? Annie shook her head in denial.

  “Fine, fine.” Gigi waved her hands as if she didn’t care to argue the point. “Just know that West Gallagher is wonderful.” She threw her arms out expansively. “This—all of this—I owe to his book. You should reread it, Annie. He made me look deep into myself for the desire I’ve been denying because I was afraid it would never come true—and suddenly, I knew. I just knew. I said I wanted to sing, but I was too afraid to audition, for fear everyone would laugh. West’s words gave me the courage to finally go for it.

  “But never mind about me.” Oblivious to the hubbub around her, Gigi enveloped Annie in a warm hug and then planted a kiss on her cheek. “If you think this Rome will get you what you want, go for it,” she said generously. “As always, I will be happy for you. But please, think about what I’ve said, and in the end, remember your dream—and follow your heart.”

  Shooing Annie away, Gigi promptly disappeared to change gowns for her second set, leaving Annie to return to Rome and speculate. What did she really want to do? She ought to be jumping at this opportunity West had given her to cultivate a father for her child, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say to Rome. She wouldn’t be having that problem with West—he always had something to say to her. West cared.

  West cared strongly, with every fiber of his being.

  The realization made her shiver. She’d been wrong. West really did care about people. Why else would he have taken in Teddy, the son of someone he barely knew? Because he had a heart.

  And now he had changed Gigi. Her aunt had finally figured out her real dream—the thing that would make her happy—was not what she’d supposed at all. It had been what she had been most afraid she would never be able to have.

  Gigi had told her to think about that. Could she be after the wrong thing? And what was she most afraid she’d never have, and therefore had been avoiding to keep from being hurt?

  Annie knew. Oh, she didn’t want to admit it, but she knew. After Jean-Pierre had destroyed her trust, she had been closing herself off from men, too afraid of being hurt to trust in love again. But now she’d trusted a man enough to open up her heart to him and tell him that she’d always wanted a child. That had never happened before, not even with Jean-Pierre.