Do You Take This Baby?

by Wendy Warren

  At that, she actually laughed. “Corn on the cob?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Really. How did he eat it?”

  “Like this.” Ethan mimed a beaver gnawing on an ear of corn as if it were stripping a log. Gemma laughed again, harder, and he grinned back. “You knew every summer it would be the same thing—ol’ Beaver Boy and his corn. You couldn’t stand the thought. Not to mention how you felt about the bedtime toenail clipping.”

  “Eew!”

  “Exactly.”

  His grin seemed to make her bones melt. Realizing that Owen was falling asleep, she shifted to a cradle hold while she gathered her thoughts. “The woman at the bridal salon said I chose my wedding dress faster than anyone who had ever shopped there.”

  “Ah. Not picky, then?”

  “I wasn’t picky enough, I think.”

  She said it so softly, she wasn’t 100 percent certain he heard her until he said, “You were the one who called it off, then?” Unbuttoning the collar stud at his throat, he settled back to listen.

  “No. William, my fiancé, decided he needed to make a big change in his life.”

  “What kind of change?”

  Realizing that pride and the truth were not always compatible, she admitted, “A change of fiancées.”

  He swore under his breath.

  “Yeah. Especially since I work with them both. William is a math professor, and Christine Marie Allard teaches French. She’s the object of desire for the entire Easton College male population. Probably some of the female population, too. Lucky me, I get to see her and William eat off the same salad bar plate in the café during lunch. I snitched a bite of his vegan burrito once, and he said he thought that was ‘unwise during flu season.’”

  “Sounds like William needs to be slapped around.”

  She shrugged. “I brown-bag it now so I won’t have to look at them.”

  “And he’s engaged to Mademoiselle Allard?”

  “Not yet. But he came to my office before the end of spring quarter to let me know they’re headed in that direction. He didn’t want me to be surprised, because that wouldn’t be ‘thoughtful.’”

  Ethan let the silence linger a moment before venturing, “Were you in love?”

  “In love enough, I thought.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You were right, I want children. William said he wanted at least three kids. We agreed about politics and that we wanted home with a fenced yard and a chocolate Lab named Atticus. I thought we were in sync.”

  Carefully, so he didn’t disturb Owen’s sleep, Ethan stretched his arm along the back of the sofa. “Atticus is a dweeb name for a Labrador retriever.”

  She jerked in surprise. “It is not.”

  “Is too. Labradors are a sporting breed. No self-respecting Lab wants to be named Atticus.”

  A smile poked at her mouth. “Mine would have.”

  He touched the dimple that always appeared just to the left side of her lower lip when she smiled. The contact lasted about a millisecond, but she knew she was going to feel it the rest of the night. Her bare toes curled over the side of the coffee table. Dang.

  “He wasn’t good enough for you,” Ethan murmured, voice like a stroke of velvet against her cheek.

  Double dang.

  She adjusted Owen’s tiny suit. “You think so?”

  “I know so. You dodged a bullet.” The air was fragrant with the subtle scents of cologne and baby and crackling wood. The buzz of Ethan’s cell phone relieved Gemma of the need to figure out what to say next. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he glanced at the picture on the screen, then said, “Excuse me. I’d better take this.”

  She expected him to get up and walk away for privacy, but he stayed put, the phone to his ear. “Okay, take a deep breath,” he said after a moment. “Have you turned on the lullaby CD?...He doesn’t hate it. It—it just takes a while...” He rubbed his eyes. “I understand that he can be difficult, but you told me you have experience with—...All right, all right. I can’t leave right now, but I—...Within a half hour, forty-five minutes at the max.”

  Gemma rubbed slow circles over Owen’s back as Ethan wound up his call. She kept her gaze averted, trying to be discreet, though her curiosity ran rampant. When he got off the phone and slipped it back into his pocket, she hoped he’d tell her whether the call was from someone taking care of Cody, as she suspected, but he merely looked at her regretfully. “I may have to leave sooner than planned. I’d better get back to the reception and make my toast to the happy couple.”

  Disappointment thudded in her chest as their personal moment dissolved.

  It wasn’t all that personal, she told herself pragmatically. He only asked you to take a break from the reception with him, not take out a thirty-year mortgage. “I’ll come with you,” she said. “I have to give my speech, too.”

  She rose nimbly with Owen in her arms, but wriggling her feet back into her mile-high shoes proved more of a challenge. The long gown kept getting in her way.

  “Here, let me help.” Kneeling, he steadied her shoe with one hand, holding the back of her bare ankle with the other as he guided her into her high heel.

  His intention was simply to help—she knew that—but she sensed instantly when “help” turned into holy moly. Did he realize goose bumps were racing up her legs? Oh, crumbs... I’m going to giggle.

  To save her dignity, this process had to be interrupted. “Thanks. I can get the other one mySELF!” The last syllable became a yelp as he reached for her other foot.

  “Put one hand on my head to steady yourself,” he told her. “Can you manage that with the baby?”

  “Sure,” she squeaked, transferring Owen to her hip and doing as he directed. His fingers curled around her ankle, and she gulped. His hair was as thick as her own. And it was sort of springy, with a wave. And she kind of accidentally delved into his hair a little as he slid her foot into the shoe.

  Looking up, he flashed her the grin he’d perfected over the years. “Back to the ball, Cinderella?”

  No, thank you. I’m perfectly fine staying here the rest of my life. But she nodded.

  Careful not to walk too near him and utterly incapable of making conversation, she pretended a need to fuss with the baby, who was perfectly content to gnaw on her shoulder. The middle of Gemma’s chest began to hurt. Why? Frustration? Grief, because when she went home tonight there would be no man to help her put anything on...or take anything off?

  The deep ache sliced through her again. Maybe it was longing. She didn’t begrudge anyone the joy of love and family, but she was getting mighty tired of waiting for her own turn. And maybe, just maybe, she thought as she held Owen closer, it was time she did something about it.

  * * *

  “I can’t do this!” Slamming closed the heavy textbook in front of him, Ethan pounded his fist on the dining table. “I’m stupid. I’m the dumbest kid in my class. I’m the dumbest one in the whole fifth grade. I hate school!”

  Picking up the social studies book, he threw it across the room, where it hit his mother’s wooden Families Are Forever plaque, knocking it to the floor. Drawn by the commotion, Marci Ladd ran in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel, her expression concerned but not surprised.

  One look at the worry in his mom’s eyes filled Ethan with crushing guilt. His uncle had told him and his sister not to give their mom any trouble right now. She’d been sick—the having-to-go-to-the-hospital kind of sick—almost all year, and she didn’t need more problems. But Samantha was getting into trouble all the time, and Ethan...

  “What’s wrong with me?” Leaning forward over the table, he thumped his head on his folded arms and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  His mother’s slender fingers curled around his shoulder. He could fee
l her trembling. She did that a lot now, as if she was no longer strong enough to control her own body. “There is nothing wrong with you. You learn differently, and the school hasn’t figured out how to help you yet.” She stroked his hair. “They’re still learning, too. But you’re fine. The coolest, funniest, kindest boy I know. And you run faster than anyone in school.”

  Instantly, love overwhelmed Ethan’s other feelings. He dived toward his mom, wrapping his arms around her waist and hanging on like some dumb little kid while tears clogged his throat and spilled from his eyes no matter how tightly he shut them. “Don’t leave, Mom.”

  She laughed, squeezing him in return. “Don’t be silly. Where would I go without you and your sister? You and Sami are my favorite people to be with.”

  For a second, Ethan relaxed, but then the screaming started.

  “Oh, my.” His mother set him away from her, turning toward the sound with an almost robotic reaction. “That must be your sister. Why does she do that, I wonder?”

  Ethan reached toward his mother, but when his fingers curled around her wrist, she seemed to slip from his grasp as if she were nothing more than ether. “Don’t leave,” he pleaded again.

  “Maybe she’s hungry. Have either of you eaten today? I have some asparagus.”

  “Mom, please don’t go.”

  His sister wailed like a banshee in the background. It actually hurt Ethan’s ears. “Shut up, Samantha,” he shouted to her. “Stop screaming!”

  Marci rounded on him. “How dare you talk to your sister that way!” Suddenly, her face wasn’t sweetly concerned; it was furious and frightening. With eyes that looked dark and haunted and her lips drawn back, she snarled, “You’re ten for crying out loud. You’re supposed to take care of her. Maybe if you’d fed her, this wouldn’t be happening.”

  The screams grew deafening. Marci disappeared from the room abruptly—there one second, gone the next. Ethan wanted to find her, but his feet wouldn’t move, so he remained where he was, using all his strength to call out, “I’ll get her something to eat, Mom! Come back! I’ll make her something right now—”

  As he awoke from the miserable dream, Ethan’s leg jerked, making contact with Cody’s crib. The already-piercing screams from Samantha’s son intensified, and Ethan became aware of pain in his head as he awoke from the bad dream.

  Sitting up in the chair he’d moved to what was now the nursery, Ethan felt the pain beneath his skull pound in rhythm with Cody’s angry sobs.

  “All right, buddy,” Ethan said in the most soothing tone he could manage at two in the morning. Still groggy, he looked into the crib with a feeling he could define only as absolute fear. Cody’s red face was screwed into an expression of rage. Nothing new there, but the inability to help—at all—filled him with dread.

  Cody’s inconsolable misery was the reason Ethan had asked each nanny he’d hired to live in, 24/7. It was also why they kept quitting.

  Awkwardly, he fumbled with the baby’s blankets for the umpteenth time tonight. “What happened, huh? You were asleep for a half hour. I thought we were on a roll.”

  He picked the baby up, knowing what was coming and trying not to wince. But, yep, the moment Ethan’s large hands scooped beneath the little body, Cody went rigid, the decibel level in the room doubling.

  With difficulty, Ethan exhausted the same checklist he went through every time. First, as Cody’s fists and feet flailed, he checked his nephew’s diaper. Then he warmed a bottle, walked the baby, jiggled the baby, turned on a CD, turned off the CD. Nothing worked. The most recent pediatrician visit had determined Cody’s ears were fine, and he was nowhere near teething, so that wasn’t the problem.

  Finally, Ethan broke out in a sick sweat.

  “Dude,” he said raggedly, “I’m so, so sorry. I wish I knew what to do.” With a feeling of loneliness and isolation he hadn’t experienced since he was a kid, he lowered his head in exhaustion. “Dear God, what am I going to do?”

  Opening his eyes at his uncle, Cody inhaled sharply, his brow furrowed, almost as if he’d heard the question and was giving it some thought. After a moment, however, his response to Ethan’s plea was a shriek that threatened to shatter the windows.

  With defeat threatening to engulf him, Ethan finally had an idea, and it afforded him a tiny glimmer of hope as he realized there actually was one more thing he could try.

  Chapter Five

  Ethan lived out of town a ways, on the other side of Ponderosa Avenue, tucked into the foothills. Gemma knew he’d built a spectacular bachelor pad that had been the talk of the town and had even been featured in Architectural Digest. Nothing, however, prepared her for the stunning log-and-river-rock dream that greeted her at the end of a quarter-mile, tree-lined drive.

  Parking near the front of the house, she craned her neck to take in a wall of windows that rose two stories. “Wowsers.”

  It was barely 7:00 a.m. the morning after the wedding. At 6:00 a.m., her mother had awakened her, handing her the cordless house phone. Sleepy and confused, she’d sat up in bed, put the phone to her ear with her eyes closed and heard, “Gemma? I’m sorry I’m calling this early. Really sorry. I—I’m in trouble here. Can you come to my place?”

  A baby’s plaintive sobs had underscored Ethan’s fatigue-roughened voice.

  Deciding to act first and ask questions later, Gemma got his address, placated her rabidly curious mother with a promise to tell her later what was going on, then dressed quickly in pink pedal pushers and a short-sleeved blouse she knotted at her waist and headed to the local bakery, Something Sweet, where she ordered bagels, almond–poppy seed muffins and two coffees to go.

  Now, as she maneuvered out of her car with breakfast and stepped onto the stone walkway leading to the house, she hoped she hadn’t been dreaming and was actually about to embarrass the devil out of herself.

  Ethan answered the doorbell looking as if he’d just been tackled by a weed-whacker.

  “Thank God,” he breathed, mopping at a blob of spit-up that adorned his T-shirt. “Come in. I just laid him down, and he’s freaking.”

  On cue, Cody unleashed a squall that could have tossed ships at sea.

  “Where’s your nanny?” Gemma asked, crossing the threshold into a grand foyer.

  “Number three tore out of here like a bat out of hell last night. She won’t be back.”

  “Oh. Wow.” The blue eyes and smile that had charmed a legion of women were dull and exhausted now. Gemma’s attention was divided between Cody’s squall, Ethan’s agitation and her surroundings. Everywhere she looked, the house spoke of Ethan’s success and the current chaos.

  A soaring log ceiling supported enormous wrought iron chandeliers, and a double staircase curved like a parentheses toward a second-floor bridge, but on those stairs lay baby-sized blankets and towels and toys that appeared to have been dropped and left. Before them on the first floor, a beveled-glass-and-wood-trimmed hallway directed them into the great room beneath.

  “He’s in here,” Ethan said as he led her to an immense, professionally decorated space. More toys, a box of diapers that had been ripped open and assorted laundry littered their path.

  He led her straight to a crib he’d set up incongruently in the center of the large room. Appointed with an elaborate mobile and premium bedding, the crib was a luxe nest for the baby who screamed from its depths.

  Over a river-rock fireplace, a flat-screen TV approximately the length of a compact car played a children’s show that competed with the baby’s hollering. “The baby sleeps in here?” she asked, trying not to sound disapproving.

  “No. Cody has his own room. I got another crib for in here, because...” Ethan raised a hand and swirled it in the air as if he were about to say something profound, then he ended on a helpless, “I don’t know. I thought he might like it better.”

 
That was cute. “Did either of you sleep at all last night?”

  “I nodded off once.”

  Ethan wore an expression of such utter defeat on his beautiful, drained face that she wished she could hug him without it seeming awkward. She settled for a heartfelt, “I’m so sorry,” offering a sympathetic smile, then setting the coffees and treats she’d brought on a huge coffee table in front of the half U–shaped sofa. Returning to the crib, she bent to retrieve the red-faced baby from his bed. “Hey, you,” she cooed, albeit loudly enough to be heard above the noise. “I bet you’re a tired boy.”

  Cody looked at her, arched his back and howled.

  Ethan plunged a hand through his hair. “Sounds like he’s trying to summon a werewolf.”

  “Is that what you’re doing, little man?” Gemma cocked her head. “I think you don’t like all this light. And all this air. And all this noise.” To Ethan she said, “I need a receiving blanket. And could you turn off the TV? And most of these lights.” The room was awash in what appeared to be light from every source in the house.

  “Sure.” He picked up a remote and the TV fell silent. “I thought he might be bored, so I turned it on.” An app on his phone must have been connected to the lights, because they dimmed considerably at the touch of his screen. “What’s a receiving blanket?”

  “Thin? Soft. Flannel?”

  “Oh, yeah. I think there is a stack of those.” He moved to the couch and riffled through a pile of unfolded laundry until he found what he was looking for. “This it?”

  Gemma nodded. “Yup. Spread it out for me right there, will you?” She nodded to the sofa cushion.

  While he did as she asked, Gemma checked the baby’s diaper. Dry. That was good. And kind of impressive. Ethan must have changed him at some point. Or at several points. “Has he had any formula recently?”