He shuddered. Yeah. He’d probably spent a good ten minutes staring at the pump thing, trying to figure out how it worked and why it wasn’t prohibited as an instrument of torture.
“When I was little, Nana and Poppy used this as a dining room,” Kate said as she sailed through. “But I don’t have a big table, and it’s kind of silly to have a separate place to eat when it’s just me. So I turned it into a home office. I was going to move Jamie’s crib in here, but then he started cutting this tooth and waking up at night again, and it’s just easier to have him in with me.”
“Where’s that?”
She swayed ever so slightly, as if she’d thought about stopping and decided against it at the last second. Too late, he realized how his question could have come off.
Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have asked right away. But he would be here for six weeks. If he was going to spend time with his son, he needed to know where to find the crib. It was only logical.
Yeah, you can talk circles around anybody you want, whispered his mother’s voice in the back of his head. But since when did that do anybody any good?
Kate smiled brightly. “This way,” she said, and led him through a small hallway that held a dresser against one wall, past a door that she said led to the basement, and into a tiny room that was almost completely filled with the bed he remembered so well.
Now he was the one swaying.
“It’s small, I know,” she said, gently laying Jamie on the bed and working the zippers on his coat while he made noises that had Boone suspecting the nap was over. “I had to take the doors off the closet to make enough room for the crib. That’s another reason I have to move it. If I wait much longer, he’s going to figure out he’s sleeping in a closet and then he’s going to develop claustrophobia or something.”
She spoke so casually that Boone would have thought she wasn’t remotely affected by the fact that he was in her room and they were standing mere breaths apart in front of the bed where they had most likely made Jamie.
Then he caught the pinkness in her cheeks and the way she kept her focus firmly on the zippers. On their squirming, protesting son.
Probably an excellent strategy.
* * *
KATE GAVE THANKS that Jamie seemed happier when he woke up. She doubted the tooth had come through yet, but it seemed things had subsided, at least for the moment. And this way she didn’t have to sit down and nurse him again right away.
It wasn’t that she was shy about feeding the baby in front of Boone. She’d had plenty of practice during their Skype calls, though that had mostly been in the early days, when Jamie’s schedule could best be described as All Chaos, All The Time. Now things were far more settled, which was just the way she liked it. Easier to predict. Easier to work around.
But it had felt different when they were in the car. The confined space had made her far too aware of Boone’s presence, his blue eyes darting everywhere, his shoulders filling her little front seat, his breath apparently stealing all the oxygen.
It hadn’t been the breath itself that got to her, though. More like the way it had hitched a little when she’d adjusted her clothing. And, undoubtedly, flashed him the tiniest bit.
With Jamie on her hip, she led the way to the stairs. Boone had been very understanding when she’d said there would be separate bedrooms on this visit, but even though she didn’t know him as well as a so-called wife should know her husband, there were some areas in which they were oh-so-intimately acquainted. Boone was no monk. And before he returned to Peru, he had told her that even though their marriage wasn’t what anyone would call typical, he planned to honor his vows while they were separated. There would be no other women while he was gone.
Since one of the other things she knew about him was that he was a man of his word, she’d had no cause to doubt him. Which meant that she would spend the next six weeks with a very deprived man who was probably feeling the memories as much as she was.
“Grab your things,” she said when they reached the front door again. “I’ll show you where to drop them.”
Because yeah. Boone wasn’t the only one who had been deprived. Somehow, when she’d told him to stay here, she had assumed that fatigue and common sense would be enough to guard herself against wayward thoughts and urges.
Wrong.
“This banister needs work.” Boone gave it a wiggle.
“I know. It’s on the list.”
He made a sound that could have been a groan or a snort. “I’m starting to wonder if six weeks is going to be enough.”
“Whatever we can’t get done, I’ll hire someone to finish. Or if we even get to the point of the cosmetic stuff, painting and such, I’ll be good. Allie can help me.” She reached the landing and brushed her fingers across the chunk of driftwood nestled on the deep windowsill. “Cash is pretty handy, too. He might be able to tackle some odds and ends.”
“Cash? Who... Oh. Right. Allie’s new boyfriend.” Boone gave the upper banister a shake. “Guess those flights took more out of me than I thought. I forgot his name for a minute there.”
“Not to worry. Everything was such a whirlwind, with Allie getting engaged and then almost married...”
“Did the Mounties really storm the wedding and haul the groom away in handcuffs?”
Kate shuddered as she remembered how close her baby sister had come to marrying a man who had a thing for identity fraud. “Yep. Good thing, too. Otherwise, she might have gone through with it, and then she would be stuck with the wrong guy. Anyway, the fiancé is history. She realized that it was really Cash she wanted, and they are wandering around town like the two most dazed lovebirds you ever saw. So if you blanked on his name, don’t feel bad. There are times when I still have to stop and remind myself who’s in and who’s out.” She gestured to the open door. “Here you go.”
Boone brushed past her, suitcase hefted, into the room that had seemed so airy until he entered. What was it about him? No matter where he went, he seemed to fill the space. Not in a bad way. More like once he was there, the emptiness was gone. Like he wasn’t sucking up the space but was filling a hole.
She shook her head. Filling a hole? Good Lord, a teenager couldn’t have been more snigger worthy. Time to move on. Fast.
“There’s extra blankets in that closet.” She pointed from the doorway. No way was she going into the room with Boone. “And the bathroom is right down here.”
“Is that a water stain?” Boone’s voice pulled her around to where he stared up at the ceiling.
“I think so. It’s old, though. It was there before I moved in, and it hasn’t gotten any bigger.” She squinted. “At least, I don’t think it has. I, um, don’t come up here very much.”
The look he shot her was carefully blank.
“I’ll add it to the list.”
She pulled Jamie’s hand from the neckline of her sweater, which he seemed determined to yank down. “I’d better warn you that this entire bathroom is on the list, too.”
She opened the door to the room in question and braced herself. Boone’s long, low whistle only confirmed her fears.
“What color is that?” he asked.
She didn’t need to look over his shoulder to remember the hideous greenish-brown shade that covered the walls. “I think it’s something Nana got on sale. Or maybe she had a couple of half cans that she combined.”
Boone shook his head. “Did you ever see American Graffiti? There’s a part when Harrison Ford’s character says the other guy’s car is a cross between piss yellow and puke green.” He tapped the wall. “I think this might come under that banner.”
“Nana was more into frugality than style. At least everything still works.” She knocked on the door frame for luck. “Though you do have to jiggle the handle on the toilet sometimes.” She thought for a moment. “And the pipes bang when you first get in the shower,
but that passes quickly. Other than that, you’re golden. If the fixtures looked as good as they work, it’d be great, but...”
He walked into the room, hands on hips, taking it all in. “I’ve seen worse.”
Oh, that was reassuring, considering he spent a good chunk of his time in villages without indoor plumbing.
“This will be the rainy-day project, I think.” He pointed from one element to the next. “New toilet. New vanity and sink. The tub...” He pulled back the shower curtain. “Oh, yeah. This is one of those old-fashioned ones. People love those. It can probably stay.” He moved in a slow circle. “It’s a nice room. Plenty of space. We’ll take down those god-awful shutters, put up some curtains, new fixtures, a coat of paint, and it’ll be—”
He came to a standstill, his gaze frozen on Jamie and his mouth gaping slightly.
She glanced down. At Jamie’s hand, curled around the neckline of her sweater. Which he had dragged halfway down her chest, revealing a whole lot of skin and a whole lot of bra. And even though no one in their right mind would ever describe a nursing bra as seductive, from the way Boone seemed to have been turned to stone, she was pretty sure he thought it was the best bit of satin he’d seen in ages.
Almost a year, to be exact.
“Oops.” She disengaged Jamie’s fingers and tugged, but the fabric was bunched beneath his wriggling little body. “Here.” And without thinking, she pulled the baby off her and held him out to Boone.
The expression on Boone’s face shifted from naked lust to stark terror in the space of a heartbeat.
“I...” His gaze bounced from her face, to her chest, to Jamie, then back to her face. “How do I...?”
Whoa. He had told her he didn’t have a lot of experience with babies, but given the tight lines in his face, she had a strong suspicion that he’d been underreporting.
“Have you never held a baby?”
His eyes closed. His lips thinned, like he was trying to hold in a grimace. “I have,” he said slowly. “But it’s been a long time.”
Time alone couldn’t account for the way his hands suddenly seemed plastered to his thighs.
Something inside Kate contracted in empathy.
Boone had never given her more than the basics about his childhood. She knew that the only thing his father had given him was twenty-three chromosomes and that it probably would have been better if his mother’s role had stopped about there, as well. She knew that there had been indifferent relatives and foster care and periodic reunions with his mother that seemed to always stop just short of physical abuse. She knew that as far as Boone was concerned, his life hadn’t really begun until he’d met up with the MacPhersons and gone to Peru.
None of that explained why the mention of holding a baby—holding their baby—left him looking like he’d been dropped into a pit of snakes.
Kate closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing for a second. Then she put Jamie on her hip, pulled her sweater into position—no point in adding another level of challenge to the situation—and marched over to Boone. “Stick out your arms.”
“Here?” He looked around, his gaze lingering once more on the tub, the sink, the tile floor. “Everything is solid. Hard. What if I drop him?”
“You won’t. I won’t let you,” she added when panic filled his eyes. She switched to teacher mode. “Come on. Arms out. That’s right, bent at the elbows. Now, I’m going to put him up against your shoulder. You’re going to put your left hand under his little bum. Your right hand goes across his back. Got it?”
He took a step back.
Oh, no. No way was she letting him run away from this.
“Boone. Whatever has you worried, you can forget about it. I’m right here. Don’t you want to hold your son?”
His nod was slow in coming, but at least he was affirming.
“He moves a lot, so you’ll need to keep your grip secure. But not too tight.”
“Are you sure this is a good—”
She pushed the baby toward him before he could get any more freaked out. As she’d expected, his arms closed around Jamie—tentatively at first, then tight enough that she felt good about letting go and stepping back.
“There,” she said softly. “Jameson Boone, meet Jackson Boone. But he thinks Jackson is a preppy name, so don’t call him that. Which you won’t anyway, because he’s your father.”
Jamie leaned back and stared at Boone. Boone stared rigidly back.
Too late, she wished she had her phone or a camera nearby. But since she didn’t—and there was no way she was going to ruin the moment by running off—she focused instead on soaking up every possible detail so she could carry them in her memory.
Two cleft chins. Two sets of wide-spaced blue eyes. Two slightly upturned noses and two heads of light brown hair and two matching expressions of misgiving.
Her throat tightened, swiftly and unexpectedly.
Daddy. I should have said, “He’s your daddy.”
At last, Boone cracked a smile. “Hey, buddy.”
Jamie’s response was to open his mouth and let out a wail that could have punched a hole in the ceiling.
Oh, no. “It’s okay,” she said to Boone, to Jamie, to herself as she reached and grabbed. “He just doesn’t know you, that’s all. Give him a couple of days to warm up and he’ll be fine.”
“Sure,” Boone said in a hollow sort of voice. “Totally understandable.”
“I’ll take him downstairs. Change his diaper while you have a shower.” A joke might help. “Don’t worry, we won’t have the diaper lesson until tomorrow.”
“Probably a good plan,” Boone said, and grabbed a towel from the closet.
Kate backed out of the bathroom and hurried down the stairs. She shouldn’t have pushed it. Damn it, she was an early childhood educator. She was well aware that even a father who had been present from a kid’s first breath could sometimes be rejected in favor of the mom, and vice versa. She should never have forced this, especially when it was so obvious that Boone had been on the edge about it.
“But I want him to love you,” she whispered to Jamie as she placed him on the changing table. “I want him to know that you are the most miraculous little thing on the whole planet. I want him to hate every minute he has to be away from you. I want him to be in your life. Not because he has to be, but because he wants to be.”
It didn’t feel like too much to ask. And it wasn’t. Not from anyone else.
She just didn’t know if Boone could do it.
CHAPTER THREE
BOONE WOKE THE next morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of music.
He fumbled for his phone, squinted at the time and fell back against the pillow. It was barely five thirty. How the hell could Kate be doing the Julie Andrews thing at this hour?
But even as he lay there, he admitted that even though it was early, it wasn’t all bad. He’d almost fallen asleep over dinner last night. Thirty-six hours of travel with no more than a nap did tend to take a toll.
It wasn’t until just now, waking up a lot more refreshed and a lot less cramped, that he realized Kate had probably pulled off a similar marathon of wakefulness more than once since Jamie’s birth.
God, Boone, could you be any more clueless?
As soon as the words crossed his mind he stopped himself from piling on any more guilt. Not because it wasn’t true. He was clueless sometimes. But the words in his head had been a straight echo of his mother’s voice. He’d learned a long time ago that anything that sounded like her wasn’t something that should be indulged.
“Go downstairs,” he ordered himself. “Ask how you can help. And for the love of God, don’t freak if Jamie doesn’t want anything to do with you. You read the books. It’s just gonna take time.”
Time, and a whole lot of guts he wasn’t sure he had. Which Kate had probably figured
out the moment he froze at the mention of holding Jamie.
He’d thought he was ready. After all the time he’d spent giving himself pep talks, he’d thought he’d convinced himself the mistakes he’d made as a kid were simply that, and not a guarantee history would be repeated. But when Kate had pushed Jamie toward him, all he could see was the unrelenting surfaces of porcelain and tile. All he could feel was little limbs slipping from his grasp. All he could hear was cries of pain.
He wanted to be a good father. He might not be an always-around one, but he still could be a dad who tickled his kid and changed diapers with ease and even tossed him in the air. But it was obviously going to take a lot more determination than he’d expected.
Remembering that one second when Jamie had first settled in his arms and looked up at him told him that it would be worth it.
Remembering the confusion on Kate’s face told him that he needed to let her know why this was gonna take work.
With his marching orders clear, he pulled on sweatpants and followed his nose to the kitchen.
Kate sat at the kitchen table with Jamie on her lap. He squealed and bobbed and dove like a prize fighter. The spoon in her hand hovered just out of Jamie’s grasp, like she was waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and shove food in his mouth. Or maybe she was waiting for the right moment in the song she was singing—something about wheels and a bus and beep, beep, beep. Boone was torn between fear that Jamie would slide right off the slippery little robe Kate wore, and admiration at how easy she made it look.
She glanced his way with a faint smile. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”
He could say the same. Except for her, even with her hair askew and glasses instead of contacts, it would be true.
“Hope we didn’t wake you,” she continued. “Somebody decided that five was the new eight.”
“I guarantee you, he didn’t inherit that from me.”
She waved toward the counter. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself.”
A couple of minutes later, coffee appropriately doctored and that first life-altering sip working its way down his throat, he pulled out a chair on the other side of Jamie. “Safe to sit here?”
First Came Baby Page 3