Do You Take This Baby?

by Wendy Warren

  She had a brother, and she’d had a fiancé, so he wasn’t quite sure why a man in a towel, in his own house, had thrown her off quite as much as it had. As for seeing her in that crazy getup...

  He hadn’t known whether to laugh out loud, hug her, loosen her hair or kiss her. The latter reaction had surprised him the most. There’d just been something so damn cute about her yesterday. And he hadn’t had a girlfriend in a while, and he was a guy, so...

  Taking a quick shower, toweling off, and throwing on a pair of jeans and a shirt, Ethan decided to get back on the old stable footing with her today. Cody’s social worker was due to arrive today at noon. He and Gemma needed to present a unified front.

  As he headed into the hall barefoot and walked quietly downstairs so as not to awaken her or Cody, he thought about his growing friendship with Gemma. He wouldn’t have known how to get through these last couple of weeks without her and felt a tug of disappointment over the realization that once the intensity of having Cody in the house was over, he would live most of the time in Seattle again, she would return to her life in Portland and they’d probably go back to being acquaintances. The friendship they shared now would be a memory, but a damn good one. The kind of memory it was worth hanging on to.

  When he hit the bottom step and turned toward the kitchen, Ethan smelled coffee. Good man. You remembered to set the timer on the coffee maker. He hoped Gemma liked pancakes, his specialty, because he intended to make a couple dozen. Until training camp began, he was going to do all he could to lighten her load and the mood in the house. While he couldn’t prepare a gourmet feast, his uncle had taught him how to make breakfast, and he was pretty good at it, if he did say so.

  Whistling, he wondered how much time he had before Gemma and his nephew rejoined the living. Maybe he’d cut up a fruit salad. Women liked fruit.

  A few feet into the great room, he realized he hadn’t made the coffee; Gemma had.

  Dressed in another boring skirt and plain blouse, with Cody snug in the wrap he’d purchased, Gemma murmured softly to his nephew as she cracked an egg.

  Entering the kitchen, he glanced at the clock on the six-burner stove that had a large iron skillet ready and waiting. It wasn’t even seven o’clock, yet she gave the impression she’d been up for hours. “Morning,” he greeted.

  “Good morning.” She looked up to give him a bright smile, but it fell quickly. As it had yesterday, her glance lowered to his chest, then skittered away.

  Looking down at himself, Ethan realized he hadn’t buttoned his shirt—never did in the mornings—and she was obviously uncomfortable. Again.

  “I’m making blueberry pancakes,” she announced without looking at him.

  “That’s what I was going to do.” It was stupid to feel disappointed that he hadn’t been able to surprise her, but he was disappointed. “I’ve got some turkey bacon to go with it.”

  “It’s already laid out in the fry pan, if you want to turn on the flame.”

  His other nannies had not cooked for him. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I don’t mind. We both have to eat.”

  Ethan turned on the flame beneath the bacon, then went to fill his coffee cup. “Thanks, then.” He leaned back against the counter, close to her, but not in the way. “How long have you been up?”

  “Oh, a little while.”

  She was deliberately avoiding eye contact. When he reached over to stroke his nephew’s head, Gemma jerked. It was the open shirt. Had to be. She was just as uncomfortable around him as she’d been yesterday in the hallway.

  “It was so quiet down here, I thought you were both still sleeping,” he commented, studying her.

  “Not at all,” Gemma responded briskly, beating eggs to within an inch of their lives. “Cody and I were up at six. Need to keep to a schedule. Schedules are very soothing.”

  “Even when they begin at the butt crack of dawn?”

  A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. Quirky, funny Gemma would laugh or make a smart remark of her own or both, but Nanny Gemma pursed her lips and concentrated on measuring oil into the pancake mix.

  If she was truly so uncomfortable, the gentlemanly thing would be to button his shirt and keep a reasonable distance between them while she was here.

  That’s when Ethan Ladd realized he was no gentleman.

  His back to the sink, he braced his hands on the edge of the countertop, forcing his shirt open a little more, and flexed his pecs. Then he pulled in his gut and grinned as color flooded her face. Did that tiny squeaky sound come from her or Cody? His money was on her.

  “How did it go last night? You didn’t come pounding on my door, so I assumed everything was okay.”

  She swallowed twice before responding. “Everything was fine. I’m keeping a log of Cody’s wake and sleep times and the presumable reasons for awakening. I only had to get up once, because he was hungry. After he ate, he went back to sleep.” She kept working, folding berries into the pancake batter as she talked. “You know, I think he might be getting past the worst of the withdrawal.”

  Ethan said nothing, waiting her out until she turned her head to see why he was silent and thinking, Ha, gotcha! when she finally did.

  The plain skirts and buttoned-up blouses she’d worn the last two days made her look like a cross between Betty Boop and a Franciscan nun. Gemma might be one of the most educated women he knew, but she clearly didn’t understand the way a man’s mind worked. The more she covered her hourglass body, the more any man was going to imagine what was going on under there.

  “You gonna be dressing like that every day now?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re wearing a uniform.”

  “You wear a uniform when you play football,” she pointed out.

  “I wear it for protection.” He arched a brow. “Is that why you wear yours?” Giving her the look one magazine had called his “Liam Hemsworth smolder,” he added, “Because you don’t want anyone to see what a babe you are?”

  There was the twitchy smile again. She reached for a bottle in a warmer on the counter and plugged it into Cody’s eager mouth. “Cody doesn’t care what I’m wearing. Do you, Cody?”

  “I don’t care, either. Take it off.”

  “What?” Eyes wide, she stared at him.

  He inched a bit closer to her while Cody made sucking sounds on his bottle. “Go slip into something more comfortable. Seriously. You’re all buttoned up. Just looking at you is making me itch.” Okay. So it wasn’t the clothing that made him so antsy. He enjoyed women, always had. But this friendship/boss thing they had going? It was becoming hands-down the most interesting relationship he’d ever had.

  “I’m trying to figure you out,” he murmured.

  A frown crinkled her brow. “What’s to figure?”

  Without consciously intending to, Ethan touched her hair. As it had been yesterday, it was slicked back so tightly, his scalp hurt just looking at it. Usually, the brown waves were loose and tousled or twisted up in some half-silly, half-sexy hairdo. Ever since high school, she’d favored giant silk flowers and polka-dot bows he wouldn’t have liked on anyone else, but that somehow looked exactly right on her. This tight, scalp-punishing style was all wrong.

  “Take your hair out of that ridiculous bun.”

  Finally, he saw the Gemma he knew, with a smile she couldn’t suppress.

  “I’ll take down my hair,” she bargained, “if you button your shirt.”

  Ethan’s grin matched hers as he slowly—very slowly—did as she asked. “Your turn.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she raised one hand to the back of her head, holding Cody’s bottle steady with the other. When she struggled to accomplish her task one-handed, Ethan reached around her, locating the bobby pins and removing them one by one. They
stared at each other as he worked, their smiles fading and their bodies heating up. At least his was, and he was pretty damn certain that some of the heat he felt was rolling off of her.

  He was a dumb jock. Dumber than anyone would probably guess. There had never been a time, would never come a time, when he’d be the right man for Gemma. But this moment felt isolated from all others, and right now he wanted to kiss her. He wanted it a helluva lot.

  They were standing as closely as they ever had as her bun unraveled, releasing coils of silky hair that fell below her shoulders. Their gazes never wavered. When Ethan’s landline rang, he decided to ignore it until caller ID announced in a robotic monotone, “Jeanne Randall.” Damn it.

  “That’s Cody’s social worker.” He whispered the words.

  Gemma’s eyes flared briefly. “You should pick it up,” she said breathlessly.

  Ethan nodded. Jeanne was due at his place in a couple of hours. The phone stopped ringing, then started again. Once more caller ID announced Jeanne’s name, and this time he swallowed his frustration, stepped back from Gemma and walked around his nephew and their nanny to lift the cordless phone on the counter. His heart pounded in a way that had nothing at all to do with the phone call.

  “Ethan here.”

  While he spoke to the social worker, he watched Gemma set Cody’s bottle on the counter, then use both hands to return her hair to a much looser knot at the back of her head. Frustrated that he wouldn’t be able to finger-comb the long brown locks that tempted him, he saw one telltale sign that lifted his spirits: her hands were shaking almost as much as his.

  * * *

  An hour after Ethan had sent her blood pressure into orbit, Gemma was in the kitchen again, nervously wiping the counter as she awaited the social worker’s arrival.

  Ethan had seemed to come to his senses after Jeanne Randall phoned to see if they could meet earlier than planned. Hanging up with her, he’d excused himself to make a call from his office and left the kitchen without further comment, barely looking in Gemma’s direction again.

  Had she completely misinterpreted that whole shirt-buttoning, bobby-pin-pulling-out, bedroomy-eyes thing? That had been a sexuality-drenched moment, the kind that could steam off wallpaper. For her. But Ethan lived a very different life. Maybe he’d just been joking around. Flirting came naturally to him.

  When she’d fooled herself into thinking he was attracted to her fifteen years ago, it had gotten her into a whole peck of trouble. She didn’t care to go down that road again.

  So she’d left a plate of pancakes and turkey bacon for him on the center island, then taken a walk around the property with Cody in the wrap. Burning off her excess energy, she’d told herself to get back to the business at hand: they had a social worker to impress.

  After her walk, she fed and changed Cody, waited for him to nod off, then tucked him into his swing while she cleaned the kitchen, including the empty breakfast plate Ethan had rinsed and set in the sink. When the doorbell rang, her heart rate doubled. The baby was still sleeping soundly, and she prayed the calm would last. Rushing to the microwave, she peered at her reflection in the glass door, hopeful that she looked neat, professional and in control.

  As the voices in the front hallway grew louder, Gemma turned to see a middle-aged woman with platinum blonde hair in a chin-length bob enter the kitchen on Ethan’s heels.

  “Gemma,” he said with an expression that spoke of his nerves, “this is Jeanne Randall. Cody’s social worker.”

  After they greeted each other, Gemma asked, “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “Love one.” Setting a large leather satchel on the floor near the kitchen table, Jeanne smiled at the baby sleeping in the swing and settled herself into a chair. “I was just telling Ethan that the purpose of this visit is to approve your employment as Cody’s nanny. After we chat, I’ll leave some paperwork for you to fill out. Okay?”

  “Sure.” Reenacting her college waitressing days, Gemma carried three mugs of coffee to the table. She had a feeling her smile was overly bright. Ethan’s sure was.

  Busily sifting through a large stack of paper, Jeanne looked up and smiled. “I can see you’re both nervous. Don’t be. I don’t bite...too hard.” With a hearty laugh, she adjusted her reading glasses to the tip of her nose and folded her hands beneath her chin, looking warm and friendly. “All righty, Ethan, why don’t we begin by addressing the question I know my supervisor will be posing—‘Why is this nanny going to work out when the others haven’t?’ This is the fourth time you’re asking me to go to bat for you on the nanny vetting process. The track record is unimpressive to say the least.”

  Whoa. Make that: as warm and friendly as a police interrogator. Gemma watched Ethan’s Adam’s apple bob. The man made his living being body slammed by defensive tackles built like refrigerators, but Jeanne had just managed to make him look as if he might throw up. Gemma had the nearly overwhelming urge to reach for his hand, but she resisted.

  “Cody had a rough time at the beginning,” Ethan said. “It was hard to find someone with the right temperament to deal with him. The good news is I finally found the perfect fit.”

  Jeanne’s expression didn’t alter much as she tapped the pile of papers she’d put on the table and turned her attention to Gemma. “I’ll need to have you fill out these forms and get them back to me as soon as possible. Let’s talk about your experience a little bit. How long have you been a nanny?”

  Gemma could feel the tension rolling off Ethan in waves. Praying her first interaction with Jeanne would help him relax, she took a breath and reminded herself: be calm, be confident, be cordial. “I haven’t worked as a professional nanny, but I do have quite a bit of experience caring for my nieces and nephews. I used to come back to Thunder Ridge every weekend to offer respite care for my sister’s son. Owen had a pretty severe case of colic as an infant. He wanted to be held practically around the clock.”

  Jeanne’s smile was kind enough, though her tone remained firm. “Colic isn’t the same as an addiction to crack, though, is it?” Removing her glasses, she chewed on the tip of the stem. “What do you do professionally?”

  “I teach lit at Easton College in Portland.” For the first time ever, that didn’t sound very impressive.

  “You have the summer off, then?”

  Gemma nodded. “That’s right. And, I want to say, Jeanne, that even though I haven’t worked as a nanny before, the techniques I learned while dealing with Owen seem to be working very well for Cody.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Jeanne murmured, replacing her glasses and jotting a few quick notes on her legal pad. “Okay, let’s assume you have summer taken care of, Ethan. What happens when Gemma goes back to work in September? For the baby’s sake, I certainly don’t like the idea of having to vet another slew of nannies.”

  The muscles worked in Ethan’s jaw. “There won’t be another slew of nannies. Sam will be back by the time Gemma leaves, and we’ll have her in rehab. The clinic I found supports mothers bringing children to the facility with them. They do parenting classes.”

  “Has there been any positive movement on your end in locating Samantha?”

  If Ethan stiffened any more, they’d have to check him for rigor mortis. “I expect to hear something soon. I hired a private investigator yesterday. I was on the phone with him before you arrived.”

  This was news to Gemma. Jeanne’s expression, however, conveyed more resignation than surprise. “Your sister hasn’t responded to DHS’s attempts to get in touch, either,” she said, easily reading between the lines. Samantha had zero contact with her brother. “We spoke to a former roommate, who thinks Samantha left the state.”

  A sudden shriek from Cody had them all jumping in their chairs. The baby blinked and, realizing that he was no longer asleep on Gemma’s chest, started to howl.

  Gut instinct told
Gemma that Ethan needed to pick up the baby, needed to prove to this woman that nanny or no nanny, he could take care of Cody until Samantha was found.

  “Why don’t you take Cody out of the swing while I warm a bottle?” she suggested.

  Instantly, Ethan was on his feet. “I’ll get the bottle.”

  “No, thanks. I’m trying a new supplement in his formula. Besides, I know how much the two of you enjoy your male bonding time.”

  When Ethan stared at his nephew, his expression as trepidatious as ever during one of Cody’s crying jags, she jerked her head once at the baby and hoped her wide eyes sent the message to pick him up!

  She hoped his reluctance was less obvious to Jeanne than it was to her as he said, “Hey, little man, Uncle Ethan to the rescue.” Cody’s ire increased while Ethan fumbled with the safety belt. Once the baby was in his arms, Ethan paced and cooed and jostled unsuccessfully, all the while shooting imploring looks at Gemma.

  Drat. Blaming herself for encouraging the epic fail, Gemma nonetheless gave props to Ethan for his effort and hoped Jeanne did, too.

  When the bottle was ready, she crossed the kitchen and took the baby. Cody only had to look at her face before he stuffed his fist into his mouth and fell silent. Kissing the top of his downy head, Gemma resettled herself in her chair with the little man snuggled against her chest. Expression owlish, Cody listened to Gemma’s murmured platitudes, then accepted the bottle she offered and relaxed against her.

  Unmistakably relieved, Ethan dropped back into his chair and looked at Jeanne. “See what I mean? She’s like the baby whisperer.”

  Jeanne nodded. “I see that.” Taking a long moment to study baby and nanny together, Jeanne rubbed her eyes behind her glasses, then sighed heavily. “Ethan, I know you believe your sister wants to parent her son, but that’s not the impression DHS is getting.” She held up a hand as Ethan prepared to interrupt. “Let me finish so you’ll know exactly what you want to blast me for.” Irony and understanding filled her eyes. “Conventional wisdom is that reunification between birth parent and child should be our first goal. And it is. But kids can get shuffled through the system for years waiting for parents to clean up their acts. Or maybe the parent gets clean for a while and the child is returned, only to wind up in foster care again when the pressures of life make things implode.” She shook her head. “We fail kids miserably when that happens. Especially if we can prevent it.”