The Bad Boy's Baby (Hope Springs)

by Cindi Madsen

  “Need help?” he asked and she nodded, handing him the doll. Tucking it under his arm, he helped Zoey get her pants down and lifted her onto the toilet. She smiled at him, kicking out her legs and looking toward the ceiling for a moment. Then she was done, and he exhaled a relieved breath.

  But as soon as he got everything back into place and her hands washed, she demanded candy.

  “I don’t have any candy,” he said.

  She pointed at the toilet. “Go potty. Candy.” When he simply continued to stare, she wrinkled her face up, and he could tell she was about to cry, the way she’d done after he’d stopped her from climbing on the nightstand earlier. But that was when Emma was still inside, and she wasn’t now.

  “All right. I’ll find…something.”

  Zoey followed him into the kitchen, and he opened the pantry and eyed the sparse contents. He had several leftover MREs from his army days, but he figured she’d be as unimpressed with the ready-to-eat meal contents as he was after a week straight of choking them down in the field.

  The bag of marshmallows he’d bought for hot chocolate caught his eye. He glanced at the door again, feeling like he was about to get into trouble for reasons he wasn’t even sure of. So he quickly opened the bag and handed Zoey a marshmallow. She shoved the entire thing in her mouth and smiled at him, one cheek popping out.

  Emma walked inside, and he could immediately tell something was wrong.

  “What happened?”

  “Vera Mae’s punch,” she grumbled, then she pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long exhale. “My grandma mixed it with her meds, and she passed out at bingo. She was adamant that she was fine, but she sounded a bit loopy, and long story short, she’s going in for a CT scan and I need to head over to the hospital. So Zoey and I have to go.”

  Cam glanced at the time—they’d only been here for a little over a half hour, but it was getting late, nearing the cutoff of usual hospital visiting hours. In the past few minutes, he’d also witnessed how busy Zoey was. The girl never. Stopped. Moving. He couldn’t imagine she’d be still in a hospital, with all its climbable items and machines to check out, and he had a vision of her yanking out cords that definitely shouldn’t be yanked out. “Wouldn’t it be easier if you didn’t have to bring Zoey with you?”

  “It would,” Emma said, picking Zoey’s discarded jacket off the floor, “especially since I’ll probably have my hands full with my grandma. But I don’t have anyone to take her.”

  He glanced from Emma to Zoey, who was happy with her marshmallow at the moment, then back to Emma. “I could…I could keep her for a bit.” He tried to put conviction behind his voice so it didn’t come out as a question, even as he was questioning himself.

  Emma’s movements slowed. “You’re offering to watch her? Alone? She’s going to get tired, and I don’t have her pajamas—for once she’s not already wearing them, and everything else she needs for her bedtime routine is at my house.”

  He’d survived boot camp and had been on missions in endless stretches of desert in 110-degree weather. And if bedtime was around the corner, then he could definitely handle a toddler for an hour or so. Buck up, Brantley.

  “So I’ll take her to your place. Or I’ll keep her here until you can get back. Whatever you need. I…want to help.”

  Okay, maybe “want” was a strong word, but he could hardly leave Emma to deal with it all herself when he could practically feel the stress radiating off her.

  He could tell she didn’t know whether to disagree or to thank him, and he got the feeling that not many people offered to help her. Or maybe she never let anyone help. If that were the case, he’d have to take the option away. He could outstubborn anyone.

  “She’s potty training, too,” Emma said. “I’ve got her in pull-ups, but she’s done so well, and I don’t want her to get out of the hab—”

  “She already had to go, just a few minutes ago. I took care of it.”

  “You did?”

  He tried not to be offended by her incredulous tone. He supposed he shouldn’t be, considering how out of his league he’d felt during the potty incident. “She demanded candy, but I didn’t have any, so I gave her a marshmallow. I hope that’s okay—I figured since she eats Lucky Charms she could have one.”

  “Lucky Charms!” Zoey yelled, clapping her hands.

  “Rookie mistake,” Emma said, but she said it lightly, a hint of teasing. Then she put her hand on his arm, and while he knew she needed to go, he wanted her to keep standing this close, close enough he could smell her vanilla perfume and see the various shades of brown that twisted through her wavy hair. “If you go to my place, all you have to do is put on F-R-O-Z-E-N. She’ll fall asleep and then you can carry her to bed. As far as pajamas go, if it causes a fight, she can just sleep in what she’s got on—even the skirt.”

  “Okay,” he said with one sharp nod. “Got it.”

  She dropped her hand and took one step away, then spun on her heel. “Oh, but her car seat.” She sighed. “There’s just too much to deal with. It’d need to be moved, and you’d have to strap her in, and—”

  Cam put his hands on her shoulders, and she snapped her mouth closed. “Take my truck. I’ll take your car. I know how to work seat belts, and I’ve been driving for a long time. Believe it or not, I even know my way around this massive town.”

  When she hesitated, not even smiling at his attempted joke, he nudged her gently toward the door. “Go.”

  “If you need anything, or have any questions, call.”

  “I will.” He’d stored his number in her phone earlier today, and she had his, too.

  It took another nudge toward the door before she finally gave in, her tensed muscles becoming pliant under his fingertips. She stopped to hug Zoey, told her that Daddy was going to take her home—which admittedly still sounded weird to his ears, yet sent a swirl of pride through him—and then she rushed out the door.

  The engine revved, and he expected a slight grinding, as his truck occasionally needed to be convinced to shift, but she didn’t seem to have trouble.

  Then she pulled away and he was left with a two-year-old little princess and the pressure to not swear, not screw this up, and keep her safe, suddenly overwhelming now that he had to shoulder it alone.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  Chapter Eight

  Cam zipped up Zoey’s jacket and exhaled every ounce of oxygen from his lungs before sucking in a deep breath, the way he used to before he was about to charge into somewhere dangerous. Which was silly. This was just a few hours alone with his daughter, not enemy territory.

  “Mommy,” Zoey whimpered again and pointed toward the door.

  “I’m going to take you home and then we’ll watch Frozen. How does that sound?”

  Her eyes lit up, but her lower lip remained out, refusing to totally give up on the pout.

  When he moved to pick her up, she shook her head, and the whimpering turned to crying as she backed away. He held up his hands. “Okay, I won’t pick you up. But you need to follow me, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “So I can take you home. We’ll watch Frozen and eat Lucky Charms and then your mom will come home.”

  He could see the wheels turning, and when he opened the door, she slowly walked outside, bracing her hand on the frame as she stepped onto the porch. It wasn’t a very big step, but her little legs made it seem as if it were built for a giant.

  So bribery works—good to know. He eyed the lights of the former B and B, considering asking Quinn for help to get through the rest of the night, but again, he’d committed, and he didn’t want Emma to think he couldn’t follow through. Their relationship was strained as it was, although the lighter moments—like when she’d bumped her hip into his and called him soldier—made him forget all of the complications and the many reasons he shouldn’t flirt with Emma Walker.

  He debated locking up, then decided he should, even if it was a safe area and there wasn’t much to steal.


  By the time he spun back around, Zoey was no longer on the porch. His pulse skyrocketed, and he rushed down the stairs calling her name. He saw her blond curls and heard her giggle. A large but shallow puddle had formed in the spot where he’d hosed off Heath’s motorcycle—he’d borrowed it for a quick trip to the reservoir and it’d ended up coated in mud—and of course Zoey had managed to find it and jump right in the middle of it. The bottom of her pink pants disappeared into the water, and murky brown droplets ran down her bare arms and clung to the pink froofy skirt. Her discarded jacket floated along the surface of the puddle.

  “Zoey, you need to get out of that pud—”

  She jumped again, squealing as the water splashed up. Even though it’d been a warmer day, with the sun down, it had to be in the low forties. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t freezing.

  She probably is, she just doesn’t care because there’s mud and water.

  When he moved toward her, she jumped again, sending muddy water everywhere, including onto him.

  He squatted down, retrieved her jacket, and gestured her closer. “Okay, you had your fun. Now come here.”

  She shook her head. He started around the puddle to pick her up, but she just moved to the other side. Outsmarted by a two-year-old, but not for long—looked like he was going to get muddy and wet, too. He charged into the puddle and scooped her up. Her muddy shoes smeared across his shirt, and cold water seeped through the fabric.

  Zoey started crying, and when she couldn’t be talked out of it, he tossed her in the air—just a few inches—and caught her. They both froze for a second, as if they weren’t sure what to make of the move, but then a smile spread across her face. So he did it again, a little higher this time, and she giggled, clapped, and said, “Again!”

  She must’ve gotten the thrill-seeking gene from my side of the family. He and Heath were always challenging each other to perform stunts growing up. The surreal sensation he’d experienced since finding out about Zoey hit him again. Still weird, but he liked that he could find some semicommon ground to make it a little less so.

  A few more tosses and he was as coated in mud as she was.

  Now that they were sufficiently dirty and happy, he carried her over to the car. The rust bucket didn’t look too terribly clean inside, the remnants of crackers spread across the backseat. Not dirty enough that he thought the mud could go completely unnoticed, though. Zoey started to shiver, and tiny goose bumps covered her arms and legs.

  Nothing’s worse than being cold and wet—another thing he knew from firsthand experience, as the army never seemed to send him to places with pleasant weather.

  After a moment of trying to decide the best course of action, Cam raced back into the house, peeled off her wet shoes, socks, and pants, and grabbed one of his T-shirts. He tried to put it over her, but it was ridiculously huge, and when she attempted a few steps, it made her trip.

  Finally he wrapped a towel around her, swapped his wet shoes out for dry ones, and then headed back to the car.

  As soon as he stuck Zoey in her seat, she started crying and trying to wiggle free. The dang thing had a buckle with several parts, and some of the crackers were cemented to the spot they all fastened into, making it that much harder to push into place. The towel wasn’t helping, either, since the buckle was between her legs. One side finally clicked in, and then Zoey arched out of the seat, half on and half off, her arm sliding free.

  Twenty minutes into watching his kid by himself, and so far the score went something like Zoey 3, Cam 0.

  …

  While Emma awaited Grandma Bev’s results, she was torn between worrying over her injury and worry over Zoey being alone with Cam. Even though he was her father, he didn’t know much about two-year-olds, and that line of thinking led to panic over how she’d left her daughter with a guy who barely qualified as more than an acquaintance.

  She’d texted him a couple times—okay, maybe three or four times—while filling out paperwork, and he kept claiming everything was fine.

  When Grandma Bev and Nurse Welch walked into the waiting room, Emma shot to her feet.

  “I told them I was fine,” Grandma Bev said, fluffing her chin-length white curls. “All this poking and prodding for nothing, and now I’ve got to wait another whole week to beat Judith.”

  Emma turned to Nurse Welch, wanting to hear she was fine from the person who’d tell the truth.

  “Everything looks good,” Nurse Welch said, and Grandma Bev harrumphed, the sound heavy on I told you so. “If she has any dizzy spells or vomiting, she needs to call us, though.”

  Grandma Bev hiked her leopard-print purse farther up her shoulder, then looked at Emma. The righteous indignation faded away, and then she patted Emma’s cheek. “Sorry to have worried you, dear.”

  “You know Vera Mae’s punch and your meds don’t mix.”

  “What I know is that if I didn’t eat all that fried food you’re always harping on, my blood pressure would’ve crashed before I got bingo. Then I’d have to hear Judith go on and on about how she’s still the reigning champ.”

  Emma shared a what can you do look with Nurse Welch, both of them already knowing the answer—absolutely nothing but love her—and then Emma hooked her arm around Grandma Bev’s. “Let’s get you home.”

  “Where’s my little Zoey, anyway?”

  “At home. I got someone to watch her, since it was so close to bedtime.” Emma was tempted to spill all, but things with Cam were so new, and it’d already been a circus of a night, so she thought she’d save dropping the bomb about him being not only back in town, but also the fact that he was Zoey’s dad, for later. If he decided he didn’t want to be involved, she’d rather not have the entire town dragging his name through the mud, and Grandma Bev couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. Which was actually how, at eight years old, Emma found out that her father had been quite the rebel in his day, that Grandma had done everything she could to warn her daughter away from him, and that Mom was pregnant before they got married.

  Grandma Bev had then added that despite her worries over the shotgun wedding, she’d forever be glad of the pregnancy, because Emma turned out to be one of her favorite people.

  It’d taken a few more years to fully understand what she’d said and the implications behind it, but it was why Emma had tried to talk herself out of crushing on Cam in the first place.

  Right after she dropped off Grandma and checked that her pillbox was filled correctly, Emma received a text from Cam that said Zoey had fallen asleep and he’d carried her to bed.

  She made Grandma promise to call if she was dizzy or experienced any symptoms Nurse Welch had warned them about, hugged her good-bye, and then buzzed home.

  The porch light beckoned to Emma as she walked up the sidewalk, its warm glow especially welcoming after the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital.

  Emma quietly slid her key in the door, but it was unlocked. Even though most people left their doors unlocked in Hope Springs, she never did. Hazard of living alone, she supposed. Well, alone with kid.

  Cam sat in the middle of the couch, the television on, the volume so low she could barely hear “Let It Go” playing. Her front room had completely transformed, too. The toys were put away, some in shelves where they didn’t really belong, but off the floor, and judging from the sliver of the kitchen she could see, the dishes that’d been filling the sink and spilling over had been done.

  “Wow,” she said. “You cleaned.”

  Cam shrugged, like it was no big deal, and a string tugged in her heart. She was dangerously close to crushing on him all over again, even though she knew that with everything that’d happened—and the fact that he’d probably never, ever fully trust her—it’d be as futile as it’d been in high school.

  He stood and tossed the remote back on the couch cushions. “Is your grandma okay?”

  “Yeah. Until the next bingo night, anyway. I might have to pay a visit to Vera Mae and threaten her to tone down
her punch.”

  “Isn’t she, like…seventy or eighty by now?” Cam asked, his mouth kicking up on one side.

  She pointed a finger at him. “Hey, don’t judge. The senior citizens in this town are all headstrong and trouble.”

  He laughed, and her heart might’ve fluttered at the sound. “I leave town as the notorious troublemaking rebel, only to come back and find I’ve been replaced by the senior citizens.” He took a step closer, and there was no might’ve about the fluttering now. “That seems like a pretty low blow to all the street cred I earned through the years.”

  “Yeah, sorry. You’re not as hard-core as you thought you were. I mean, you did offer to babysit.” She ran her palms down her jeans. “You were right about it being easier without Zoey. Trying to take care of her while dealing with hospital paperwork and my grandma would’ve been a nightmare. So? Everything went okay?”

  “We managed. There was a”—he rubbed the back of his neck and trepidation seized her gut—“puddle incident. I only took my eyes off her for long enough to lock up my place, I swear, and the next thing I knew, she’d found a puddle and was in the middle of it. I’m so sorry.”

  She smiled, her concern turning to amusement—she wished she could’ve been there to witness it, actually. “No need to be sorry at all. The water calls to her, and she loves splashing. You should see me after bath time. I’m soaking wet, more water on me than in the tub, and my shirt ends up totally plastered to my bod—”

  She cut herself off short, but the words better suited for a wet T-shirt contest had already spilled out. Cam appeared to be working very hard to not glance down at her chest, and his hard swallow sent a flush of heat through her. She couldn’t believe she’d gone from talking about bath time to being so very aware of Cam and how close his body was to hers, but there it was anyway.

  She licked her suddenly dry lips. “So, uh, the puddle.”

  “I cleaned her up the best I could, wrapped her in a towel, and blasted the heater in the car as high as it could go. I brought in her muddy shoes and clothes and put them on top of your washer.”