“She’s my best friend’s child. He and his wife are away for the weekend, trying to save their marriage.”
“And you volunteered to baby-sit.”
“In a roundabout way.” He looked pained. “As you can see, I’m not doing a very good job.”
All Gretchen could see was that he’d never looked more virile than he did at that moment, with his shirttail pulled loose from his jeans, more than a hint of five o’clock shadow on his cheeks and the light of panic in his gorgeous brown eyes. Was there anything more appealing to a woman than a big, strong man who was helpless in the face of a crying baby?
That he was a doctor only enhanced that appeal. Gretchen knew without a doubt that, had the infant been a patient in the emergency room, Marco would have handled her cries with confidence. But because she was in his care and because he obviously knew little about babies outside of an examining room, he was at a total loss.
“You do look like you’re having a bit of trouble,” she said.
“She won’t stop crying,” he replied, his frustration obvious. “I was hoping you could tell me what I’m doing wrong.”
Reaching out, Gretchen plucked the wailing infant from his arms and cradled her close. “What’s her name?”
“Kristen.”
“Hey, Kristen,” Gretchen crooned, swaying from side to side. “What’s all this crying about? You don’t want to cry anymore, do you? Crying just makes a lady’s face all red and splotchy. Very unappealing to the opposite sex.”
After a couple of hiccups and sniffles, Kristen quieted and gazed up at Gretchen with curious eyes.
“There,” Gretchen said, smiling. To her delight Kristen smiled back. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
“How did you do that?” Marco sounded so thunder-struck, it was hard for her not to laugh.
“It’s all in the way you hold them,” she explained. “Babies can sense when you’re uneasy around them. It makes them nervous.”
“And when they’re nervous, they cry,” he murmured.
She nodded. “At the top of their lungs.”
“Tell me about it.” He thrust a hand through hair that looked as if it had seen the motion often in recent minutes.
Gretchen’s heart melted. “It was hard on you, wasn’t it?” she said sympathetically.
“I’m not used to crying like that.”
No, she conceded, he probably wasn’t. Most females were undoubtedly putty in his hands. Truth was, if he smiled encouragingly at her, she’d be putty in his hands. She gazed at Kristen with new respect.
She moved back into the hallway, and he followed her inside. “You were holding her all wrong,” she said.
“What was wrong with the way I was holding her?”
Gretchen chuckled. “Nothing, if she was a piece of porcelain you were afraid of breaking. But she’s not a piece of porcelain. She’s a flesh-and-blood baby. You were holding her away from you, and babies like to be cuddled close. They need to feel the warmth from your skin, to hear your heartbeat and be encircled in your arms. They need reassurance that your only concern is for them alone.”
Babies weren’t the only ones who needed that reassurance. Where Marco Garibaldi was concerned, the words could have just as easily applied to Gretchen herself. What was it about him that made it impossible for her to look at him without her knees going weak? Why did he fascinate her so? In the end it didn’t really matter, since he’d plainly shown her, in both word and deed, that he would never hold her the way she was instructing him to hold Kristen.
Shoving her disturbing thoughts aside, she said, “Pick them up with authority and cuddle them close. If they still cry, usually one of three things is wrong.”
“What are the three things?”
“They’re either hungry, tired or wet.”
“How do you know which is which?”
“Process of elimination. Start with changing her. If that doesn’t work, feed her. Then, after that, if she’s still crying, put her to bed.” She held Kristen out to him. “Want to give it another try?”
He looked terrified, but he took the child in his arms. This time he cuddled her close to his heart. After a minute, when Kristen didn’t protest, he looked over at Gretchen with wonder in his eyes.
“She’s not crying.”
“No,” Gretchen said gently, feeling her heart thump, “she’s not.”
“Maybe I can do this after all.”
“I know you can.”
The expression on his face changed. “Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“She might not be crying, but this child is definitely wet.”
“Let me guess,” Gretchen said wryly. “You’ve never changed a diaper.”
He shook his head. “Not even in med school.”
“Do you have any diapers?”
“Upstairs.”
She nodded to the door. “Lead the way. Who knows? If you’re nice to me, I might even show you how to make formula.”
She hadn’t meant the words to sound so provocative, but she knew by the look Marco tossed her that they did. When he passed by her without comment and went out onto the porch, she didn’t know whether to be thankful or disappointed.
Curiosity got the better of her, and she found herself avidly studying her surroundings when she followed Marco inside his half of the duplex. To her left, the living room was furnished nicely with a leather sofa and love seat and a big-screen television. A beautiful oriental carpet in varying shades of brown sat in the middle of the floor. If the open book on an end table and the mail scattered across the surface of the coffee table were anything to go by, this was where Marco spent most of his time.
Down the hallway she caught a quick glimpse of mahogany furniture in the dining room and a butcher-block table in the kitchen. The place was neat and clean, thanks, she knew, to the service that came weekly.
Though all the furnishings were of good quality, and she all but drooled over the oriental carpet, as a whole the apartment lacked…something. It came to her in a flash as he headed into the living room. There were no paintings hanging on the walls, no framed pictures of family members gracing side tables.
It needed a woman’s touch, Gretchen decided, and felt a stab of regret at the realization that she was obviously not the woman who might one day bring these rooms to life.
“The diaper bag is over here,” Marco said, heading for the far side of the leather sofa and the mound of baby supplies piled there.
Gretchen pulled out a diaper and a rubberized mat. After spreading the mat protectively across the sofa, she waited for Marco to place Kristen on it. It took less than two minutes for her to swiftly change, powder and snap the baby into a clean romper.
Standing, she handed Kristen back to Marco, carefully rolled the soiled diaper into a neat ball and nodded toward the kitchen. “Let me dispose of this, wash my hands, and I’ll show you how to make formula.”
His mouth widened in a decidedly lethal smile. “I thought I had to be nice to you in order to get that instruction.”
Gretchen went hot inside. Drat her and her big mouth! And drat Marco for remembering.
“I’ll let it slide. This time.” She hoped the words sounded light and carefree, although she was fairly sure the heat in her cheeks was a dead giveaway that she was feeling anything but.
Five minutes later Gretchen sat at the kitchen table. Directly across from her, Marco held Kristen in his arms while the infant suckled happily on a bottle of formula.
“And that’s all there is to it,” she said. “Any questions?”
Marco gazed at her with obvious admiration. “Where did you learn all this?”
She shrugged. “I worked part-time in a day-care center during college.”
“You’re very good at it.”
“Thank you.” She drew a deep breath. It was time to clear the air between them. “About the other day. I’m sorry for ambushing you like that.”
His brow furrowed. “Ambushing me?”
>
“Putting you on the spot. Propositioning you.”
“Oh, that. You didn’t ambush me.”
It was gallant of him to shrug it off. Still, she couldn’t let the subject drop until she’d had her say.
She stuck out her chin. “Oh, yes, Marco, I did. We both know I did.”
“It’s okay.” In a low voice he added, “You don’t know how hard it was for me to say no.”
Gretchen clutched at the table. Her senses reeled as the implication of his words whirled around in her brain. To know that he’d actually been tempted left her dizzy and weak. And the look in his eyes took her breath away.
“It was hard for you to say no?” Her voice came out in a high squeak, and she cleared her throat. “It was hard for you to say no?” she repeated in a more normal tone.
“I’m a man, Gretchen. When a beautiful woman makes an offer like that, it’s always tough to say no.”
Beautiful? He thought she was beautiful? She swallowed and forced herself to remain focused.
“But you did say no,” she pointed out.
“Just chalk it up to a feeling I had.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“That something wasn’t right. That your heart didn’t seem to be in what you were doing.” He paused as if rethinking his actions. “It wasn’t, was it?”
What was she to do here? If she admitted that the only thing she’d ever wanted since laying eyes on him two years ago was to ravish him, how would he react? Would he suddenly take her up on her offer? How would she feel if he did?
Gretchen glanced down at her robe and nightgown. She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that her hair was as tousled as Marco’s. This definitely wasn’t the moment. When and if she repeated her offer, she at least wanted to look a little more presentable.
Besides, it wasn’t as if they could do anything about it now, even if he was amenable. Not with Marco baby-sitting. Truth was, she needed time. Time to think with a clear head, away from his overwhelming presence.
“I had mixed emotions,” she admitted.
He nodded as if that explained everything. “Like I said, you weren’t yourself. I didn’t want to take advantage of that.”
“A man of honor,” she murmured.
“Is that bad?”
Oh, it was bad all right. It made him utterly irresistible.
“No,” she replied. “Of course not.”
“You want to tell me what that was all about? The other day in the car, I mean,” Marco said.
“It’s a long story,” she demurred.
He glanced down at the baby in his arms. “I’ve got time.”
“I suppose you do.” She paused for a moment while she decided just how much she should tell him. “My best friend died last March.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, with obvious sympathy.
“Me, too. Anyway, she left an audiotape behind for me to listen to. On the tape she asked me to make several promises. One of the promises was to have a wild, crazy affair.”
“And you chose me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She could hardly tell him the truth, that he made her feel wild and crazy just looking at him. After all, he had said no to her offer. Her pride wouldn’t let her forget that.
“Proximity, I guess.” She shrugged. “My boss is gay, and almost everyone else in my office is either married or in a committed relationship. The only men I’ve seen lately are clients, which would be bad form all around.”
“Totally unadvisable,” he agreed.
“Totally.”
“I make it a practice to never date anyone from the hospital.”
“A wise move on your part.”
“So you picked me,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Because I was convenient.”
“Yes.”
His lips curved in a sardonic smile. “You’re devastating my ego.”
“I should think you’d be relieved,” she retorted, trying to ignore the way her toes were curling in her slippers.
He arched an eyebrow. “Why should I be relieved?”
“Fewer complications for you. You don’t have to deal with the unwanted attentions of a landlady who’s besotted with you. And who also has a key to your apartment.”
“That could get awkward,” he agreed.
Gretchen tried to turn the whole embarrassing experience into a joke. “Think of the subterfuge, the sneaking around to avoid running into me. The cost of having the locks changed.”
“The horror,” he said, chuckling.
“Eventually, of course, you’d probably have to move out just to get away from me. And then I’d have to go to all the bother of finding a new tenant. All things considered, I think I’ve done us both a huge favor by not having a crush on you.”
Liar. She still had a crush on him. A major crush.
“In that case,” he said solemnly, although she thought she caught the flicker of amusement in his eyes, “I am forever in your debt.”
“Can I hold her again?” She nodded toward Kristen, who, after finishing the bottle, looked as though she would fall asleep any minute.
“Be my guest.”
Kristen nestled her head into Gretchen’s shoulder, and Gretchen lowered her face to nuzzle the hairs on the back of the child’s neck. When she looked up, she surprised an odd expression on Marco’s face.
“They smell good, don’t they?” he said softly.
“What?” she asked breathlessly, uncomprehending in the face of his intent regard.
“Babies’ heads.”
She tore her gaze away to stare down at the infant in her arms. “Yes, they do,” she replied. “If you really want to know the truth, I’d take a mixture of formula, baby shampoo and baby powder over Chanel Number Five anytime.”
“You’d make a wonderful mother.”
Instead of being flattered, Gretchen felt her lips twist. Looking up at him, she said, “So I’ve been told.”
“By whom?”
She gave him a pained smile. “By men who ran as fast and as far from me as they could, the minute after they uttered the words.”
He looked curious. “Why did they run?”
“They never actually told me, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they were terrified I’d expect them to father the children they said I’d be so good at mothering.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’ is right.”
He spread his arms. “I’m not running.”
“We’re not involved.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded.
She’d do well to remember that. “And since we never will be, you don’t have to plan on running a marathon anytime in the near future.”
“Why would you think that?” he asked.
Now she was totally confused. “Think what?”
“That we will never be involved.”
Hadn’t they just covered that ground? “The other day,” she said with exaggerated patience. “Remember? You looked me straight in the eye, and told me I sucked at seduction.”
“I said no such thing.”
“Not in those exact words, maybe, but the implication was clear. You looked at the way I was dressed and at my new car and told me they weren’t me. You turned me down when I propositioned you. Face it, Marco. If the seduction police had been anywhere near at the time, I would have received a lengthy citation.”
He shook his head. “You misunderstood me, Gretchen.”
“What was to misunderstand?”
“Everything. Seducing a man is a far different thing from propositioning him. What I meant the other day was that you’re not the type of woman who goes around propositioning strange men. If you had it in your head to really seduce a man, however, he’d stand little chance. Trust me. That aside, I don’t see where you go from my saying you aren’t that type of woman to our never becoming involved.”
Her heart thumped unevenly. “I…just assumed…”
Marco pushed his chair back from the table and moved to stand directly in front of her. “Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. The truth is, Gretchen, if I hadn’t thought there was something a little…well…off about your behavior the other day, we’d be in the middle of a wild, crazy affair as we speak.”
Chapter 4
For a long, breathless minute, Gretchen was aware only of the weight of the child in her arms, the wild thundering of her heart and a desire that left her giddy.
Now she knew how she would have felt if Marco had said yes to her proposition. Terrified. And thrilled beyond all measure.
“What are you saying?” she finally managed to ask.
He took a step toward her. “Exactly what you think I’m saying. That if you got it into your head to really seduce me, right here and right now, no ambivalence about it, I wouldn’t say no.”
“Oh,” she said weakly, taking a step back.
“Oh, is right,” he replied.
Clutching the baby like a lifeline, Gretchen took another backward step. “Even though it wouldn’t be a wise move for either of us?” she asked.
“Even then.”
A third step brought her smack up against the wall. “As we speak?”
“As we speak,” he confirmed.
“It would be kind of hard to accomplish with a baby in my arms, don’t you think?”
She tried to sound nonchalant, a not inconsiderable feat given that she was fighting an incredibly strong impulse to run next door to her bedroom, don one of her recently purchased—and as yet unworn—negligees, light some candles, open a bottle of wine and seduce the living daylights out of him.
“Trust me,” he said softly. “I’d find a way.”
He would, too, she thought, swallowing hard. She could tell by the way he gazed at her so intently, and the way her knees felt so wobbly. When Marco Garibaldi set his mind to something, it was obvious that he would let nothing stand in his way.
All at once she needed to sit down. But to do so would be to betray just how much his announcement had thrown her. Resolutely Gretchen locked her trembling knees together. As she did, she couldn’t suppress the irreverent thought that the action was not exactly what Jill had had in mind when she’d extracted that fourth damnable promise of hers.
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