Secret Agent Dad

by Metsy Hingle

  Her reply hit him like a prizefighter’s punch, paralyzing him for long seconds. Speechless, he watched Josie’s cute little tush clear the room, her long legs moving at a fast clip. Unable to move, after the bomb she’d dropped on him, he stood there with his mouth open, his bare feet planted on the floor, his head spinning. The room swam before him. Damn near sure he was going to pass out, he braced his hands against the wall and sucked in air. The dizziness subsided, leaving him feeling as weak as a kitten and wishing he could just start the entire day over. And he’d start it by remembering who he was and erasing that little bombshell Josie had just dropped on him.

  But wishing wasn’t worth spit. Wishing couldn’t solve his problems. Only he could. And he intended to do just that— starting with Josie. Shoving away from the wall, he moved toward the door on legs not quite as steady as he’d like them to be. What he wouldn’t give to just sit down—preferably with a shot of good Irish whisky, he mused. And he would. Just as soon as he set a certain raven-haired woman straight about a major misconception on her part. All right. Maybe he had lost his memory, and he didn’t remember his name. But he was damn sure about one thing—he was not anyone’s daddy.

  Daddy!

  Just the idea made him shudder. Him? A father? No way! The very notion was absurd. Just the thought of being responsible for one baby, let alone two, sent fear crawling down his spine. Surely this was not the reaction of a man who had kids. Besides, loss of memory or not, what he knew about kids wouldn’t fill a nutshell. If he were a father—which he didn’t believe for a minute that he was—he sure as hell would have remembered the fact.

  Wouldn’t he? A man just didn’t forget that sort of thing, he reasoned. Nope. He wasn’t any squalling, pint-size person’s daddy. To even think he was had been a mistake. And Miss Josie Walters with the angel eyes and sulky mouth had been the one to make it Intent on telling her just that, he started down the hall to find her.

  Finding Josie proved easy enough. He simply followed the sound of the lullaby she was singing. He paused in the doorway of the kitchen. For some, it would be an appealing picture, he thought, watching her sway with the baby in her arms as she sang. He shifted his focus from Josie and the baby to the white pine table, barely visible beneath the matching baby seats. Some instinct had him quickly scope out the rest of the room and note the points of exit—a door armed with a set of brass locks and a pair of large windows over a double sink. Crisp white curtains with yellow and blue flowers framed the window and were tied at either side, allowing a view of gray skies and steady rain. But he dismissed the weather conditions to study the window’s dimensions. He frowned, noting that the space was large enough for a man to crawl through it Of course, the man would have to get past the jungle of plants and flowers that Josie had cluttering the sill first. Satisfied that was unlikely to happen without alerting him, he averted his gaze to the stove where a pot of something that smelled delicious simmered. Pressing a hand to his grumbling stomach, he wondered how long it had been since he’d last eaten.

  Putting thoughts of food on hold, he continued his assessment of the room. A side-by-side refrigerator and dishwasher, both in white, crowded one wall. An old-fashioned breakfront took up the major part of another. Atop it, a fistful of yellow roses spilled from a sapphire-colored bottle. Pine cabinets fitted with glass doors and little white knobs filled another wall. A long sweep of white counter stretched beneath the cabinets and more pine cabinets filled the space below the counter. And everywhere he looked there were framed needlework samplers, knickknacks, homey touches. What little of the wall remained bare had been painted a cheery shade of lemon.

  The room was crowded, bordered on outright clutter, he concluded. Yet it struck him as warm and welcoming. So did the woman at its center. She stood in profile, those lean hips of hers swaying slowly while she crooned a dreamy lullaby to the baby m her arms. He shouldn’t have found the picture arousing.

  But he did.

  He shouldn’t have recalled so clearly the taste of her mouth.

  But he did.

  And he certainly shouldn’t have itched to move behind her, to slide his hands beneath her flannel shirt and discover if her skin was as soft and warm as he imagined.

  Yet he did.

  There was something so basically female, so innocent and at the same time so overtly sensual, about the way she cradled the baby to her breast while she sang. Somehow she managed to look wholesome and sexy at the same time. The combination was staggering.

  Suddenly, as though some sixth sense alerted her that she was no longer alone, Josie stopped singing midnote and whirled around to face him. “Goodness! You gave me a scare,” she said, her voice a breathless whisper that had his body tightening with need. “I didn’t hear you come in here.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I’m not usually so jumpy. Must be this weather,” she offered with a half-hearted smile.

  The weather or him? he wondered, at the look in her eyes. Lord, but she really did have incredible eyes—a clear green, with a rim of black circling the iris. They were eyes a man could easily find himself lost in if he wasn’t careful. He covered the distance between them, aware of the coolness of the wood floor beneath his bare feet, at odds with the heat stirring in his loins. He was sure she wasn’t even aware of it and would probably be mortified if she knew that he recognized the way her eyes assessed his body appreciatively. When her gaze returned to his face, another quick jolt of desire fired through him at the shy yearning in her eyes. What would it be like to see Josie’s eyes cloud with desire? To watch that soft green go nearly black with anticipation as he filled her?

  No way did he intend to find out, he told himself, yanking his gaze and his thoughts in another direction. Something told him Josie Walters was not the sort of woman to hop into the sack with a man without her emotions being involved. Memory or not, the idea of emotional tangles made him edgy. One more reason he was sure he couldn’t be those kids’ dad.

  “Okay, sweetie. How about a little burp for Aunt Josie?” she murmured to the baby she held. Removing the bottle from its puckered mouth, she shifted the baby to her shoulder and started to pat its back. She flicked a glance at him. “I didn’t think to ask you. Did you want to burp him?”

  “When you burp the baby, be sure to support its back. ”

  His throat went desert dry as the instructions popped into his head, whispered by some faceless female voice. “Uh, no thanks.”

  “You sure? Holding your...holding him might trigger your memory.”

  Panic began to knot in his stomach. “I don’t think so. I told you. I’m not their father. Besides, it looks to me like you know what you’re doing.” He paused. “You do, don’t you? I mean taking care of babies is one of those womanly instinct things, right?”

  “Hardly,” she said, disdain in her voice. “But I do know the basics. Most of the foster homes I lived in when I was growing up had babies in them. I used to help out when I wasn’t in school. But that’s not to say I’m any expert. I mean, I’ve never...” She paused, swallowed. “I’ve never had any babies of my own.”

  But she’d wanted to, he guessed, by the catch in her voice. “Well, you definitely know more than me.”

  Her lips thinned in disapproval. “How can you say that when you have these two beautiful babies? Just because you have amnesia—”

  “Listen, I know you think I’m their father because they were with me. But I’m telling you, I can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, because I may not remember anything else, but I’d surely remember my own kids.”

  “What makes you think that? You said yourself, you don’t remember your own name.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?” she argued.

  “It just is.”

  “Then how do you explain them being with you?”

  “I can’t,” he admitted. Frustrated, he offered, “Maybe I was baby-sitting them for a f
riend or for a relative.”

  She cocked one eyebrow, gave him a considering look. “No offense. But you don’t exactly strike me as the babysitter type.”

  He agreed. “Yeah, well, it’s the best I can come up with under the circumstances. I just know in my gut that these guys are not mine.”

  The baby let out a loud burp, ending the discussion. “Good boy,” Josie said with a smile as she eased him into the crook of her arm. She picked up the bottle and brought it to his mouth. The little guy latched on to it greedily.

  “He’s a boy, then?” he asked, aware of the baby watching him out of big blue eyes.

  “Umm-hmm. This is Edward. That little heartbreaker over there is his twin sister Miranda.”

  Edward? Miranda? His gaze ping-ponged from Josie and the infant in her arms to the baby whimpering in the carrier on the table, then back to Josie again. “How do you know their names? I thought—”

  A wail from Miranda cut him off.

  Josie was beside the other infant in a flash. “Shh. It’s okay, sweetie,” Josie soothed, stroking the little cheek. She slipped a pacifier between the baby’s lips. “They were both wearing ID bracelets with those names engraved on them.”

  His eyes and Josie’s immediately darted to his left wrist. He ripped off the gold and steel watch, searched the band for a name. Nothing. The thing was obviously expensive, but it bore nothing beyond the pricy brand name and the stamp declaring the gold to be fourteen karats. Disappointed, he looked up into Josie’s expectant face and shook his head.

  “What about the babies? Do their names ring any bells?”

  He thought for a moment, searched for some flicker of recognition. “No,” he admitted. As though she was unhappy with his answer, Miranda began to cry again—this time harder—and her cries set off her twin.

  Still holding Edward in her arms, Josie turned to the crying baby. She stroked the little wet cheek, brushed tufts of blond hair with her fingers. “It’s all right, love. Aunt Josie will feed you just as soon as your brother’s finished,” she promised and slipped the pacifier into the infant’s mouth again.

  The baby promptly spit it out again, and it landed at Blake’s feet. He scooped the thing up, rinsed it off as he’d seen Josie do. But when he tried to offer the nipple to the baby, she cried even harder and held out her little arms to him. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, pointing to the little red-faced noisemaker sporting a pink ribbon.

  “Her,” Josie corrected. “She’s either hungry, wet, wants to be held or all three.” Propping the other baby up on her shoulder, she took the pacifier and offered it to the screaming Miranda again.

  Once more she spit the thing out and continued to cry. Josie shot him a look. “Listen, you’re going to have to help me here.”

  “Me?” He took a step back, nerves jumping at the prospect. “I told you, they’re not mine.”

  “They’re not mine, either,” she informed him, a determined gleam in her eye.

  “I don’t know anything about babies,” he argued.

  “Then it’s time you learned. Come on, it’s not that difficult.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  When her eyes narrowed and she hiked up her chin militantly, he knew the battle was over. Swallowing, he told himself he could do this. Babies were just miniature people, right? Right, he answered silently. How difficult could it be to handle a minisize person? “Okay, what do I do?”

  “Try giving her the bottle. It’s over there on the counter.”

  But when he retrieved the thing and offered it to the sobbing infant, she pushed it away. She held out those tiny arms to him and continued to wail. When the other baby started whimpering, his head started to ache again. “I think it, um, she’s sick or something. She doesn’t want the bottle.” At just that moment, the little red-faced monster let loose with an ear-shattering squeal that made him groan. “Jeez. Can’t you make her stop that?”

  The look she shot him could have withered iron, he decided. Jostling the still-whimpering Edward to her other shoulder, she told him, “No, I can’t stop her from crying. As you can see, I’ve got my hands full with Edward. You‘ill need to check her and see if she needs her diaper changed.”

  When he hesitated, she pinned him with eyes that had gone as cool as a Minnesota winter. He reached over, peeled back the edge of the baby’s diaper and snuck a peak. “Looks okay.”

  “Stick your fingers in and feel,” she commanded.

  Reluctantly he patted the padded fabric quickly and nearly sighed with relief. “Dry,” he said unable to keep back a grin.

  “Well, if she’s not hungry and she doesn’t need changing, she evidently wants to be held. You’re going to have to pick her up, pal.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” she countered, with the swiftness and authority of a Marine sergeant. “If you think you dislike hearing her cry, just wait These two feed off of each other’s moods. As long as one of them is crying, the other one will cry, too. Believe me, you don’t want this little guy to really get started. Because if he does, it’s going to get a lot worse.”

  And because he didn’t think he could endure that racket in stereo, he wiped his hands on the towel still hanging around his neck and reached for the baby. Feeling awkward and as though his hands were too big to hold something this little, he lifted the squalling baby from her seat and held her against his shoulder, bracing her back with his hand the way he’d seen Josie do with the other baby. To his surprise the tears stopped almost at once. She gave one hiccupping sob, then another, before burying her little tear-dampened face against his neck.

  And damn if something inside him didn’t just melt. Overwhelmed by the unfamiliar tenderness running through him, he slanted Josie a glance. “What do I do now?” he all but whispered.

  The smile she gave him made his heart pick up a beat. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. When she settles a little more, see if she’ll take her bottle.”

  A few minutes later he shifted the baby into his arms and stared down at the chubby-cheeked face. Taking the bottle Josie handed him, he brought it to the little rosebud mouth. She opened and began to suck, but those tear-filled blue eyes remained trained on his face while her fat baby fingers reached up to pat his jaw. When those fingers hooked his bottom lip and pulled, another crack started around his heart. He looked over at Josie, found her eyes on him. “Don’t get any ideas,” he told her, sure he knew from the expression on her face what she was thinking. “I am not her father.”

  “How do you know? How can you be so sure?”

  “I just am,” he tossed back.

  “Listen, I realize this is a lot to take in, but think about it. Nothing else makes any sense. These two can’t be more than four or five months old—not exactly ideal traveling companions. If you’re not their father, what other reason would they have been with you in the first place?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, frustrated because he didn’t have the answer. The truth was, holding the baby did seem familiar, yet at the same time not familiar, which not only confused him, but scared the pants off him. There was something, some sense of urgency, that played at the edges of his memory, just out of reach. Try as he might, he just couldn’t seem to grasp it. “I can’t explain it. I just know they aren’t mine.”

  “Well, I certainly wish they were mine,” Josie said as she stared at the dozing baby in her arms.

  He caught the wistfulness in her voice, saw the yearning on her face as she cradled the infant. He could easily imagine her holding a miniature Josie—a baby with green eyes and pitch-black hair. “If you ask me, these two look as if they could pass for yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Sure. They’ve both got pale skin like yours. And this little lady has a small turned-up nose just like yours.”

  She smiled at that. “Their skin’s pale because they’re new. You did notice that I have black hair and that these two are blondes, didn’t you?”

  “I noticed,” he
informed her, taking in the wisps of hair that had managed to escape her braid.

  “And did you also notice that you’re dark blond?”

  He shrugged, ran a finger over the pale, silky curls tied with a strip of pink ribbon on top of the baby’s head. Realizing what he was doing, he quickly withdrew his hand. “Yeah, but my eyes are brown, and this little gal’s are blue.”

  Josie chuckled. “Most babies have blue eyes when they’re born. Sometimes it takes as much as a year before they change color. Of course, it’s possible Miranda and Edward’s mother has blue eyes and theirs won’t change.”

  Their mother. He wondered about the woman. Who was she? And why had she entrusted her children to him? Once more the answers evaded him. Propping Miranda against his shoulder, he attempted to burp her while Josie went to put the sleeping Edward to bed. Deep in thought, he paced the kitchen floor and struggled to remember as he patted the baby’s back. When he heard her burp, he grinned and eased her head from his shoulder. “Good going, sugar britches,” he said and watched the little mouth curve into what he hoped was a smile and not gas. Her little fingers reached out, grabbed at his nose this time. After a few tugs and twists, she decided to take off his ear.

  “You two having fun?”

  Laughing, he cut a glance to the doorway and drank in the sight of Josie. More of that pitch-black hair of hers had escaped from the thick braid she wore down her back and framed her narrow face, softening it, playing up her cheekbones and the wide mouth. Her skin was pale, the color of fresh cream, and he suspected the flush staining her cheeks was due to his scrutiny and not to cosmetics. From the way she continued to trap her bottom lip with her teeth, he suspected she was nervous again. And that once again he was the cause. Not that he blamed her. If she had any idea how much he would like to taste that mouth of hers, taste her again, she’d probably kick his butt out in the rain and bolt the door behind him. Forcing himself to rein in his thoughts, he said, “I’d say sugar britches here is the one having all the fun. She’s tried to take off my nose, twist off my ear and right now I think she plans to eat my neck.”