by Elaine Fox
Now, with someone else taking the brunt of it, she could view it as the temporary frustration that it was. And she felt herself breathing easier with the perspective.
She went back to the kitchen and took the bottle from the microwave. After testing the temperature on her wrist, she stood looking out the window a moment.
This must be what it’s like to have a husband, she thought, allowing herself the rumination like a forbidden piece of chocolate. Someone to share the load with. And the joys, she conceded. She imagined him up there cuddling Emily in the rocker, trying to get her to sleep, watching her face with the same heart-wrenching tenderness that Delaney always felt. Marveling over the delicate eyelashes, the firm, petal-soft cheeks, the tiny rosebud mouth that could open so sweetly into a great toothless smile, or a yawn, either one a miracle.
Sometimes Delaney felt so much love she thought she could explode with it, like she could share it with the whole world and still be overwhelmed with devotion. What would it be like to have even one other person feel that same way about Emily?
Well, that wasn’t quite fair, Delaney thought. Her mother loved Emily, too, but not enough to stand up to her father and come visit. She sighed. Maybe some day.
Delaney tested the bottle again, decided it was cool enough, and left the kitchen. Might as well spare Jack the unpleasant part of child care, he’d suffered long enough. But when she reached the foot of the stairs she didn’t hear Emily crying. And as she quietly ascended the steps she detected the soft rattle and contented humming of a calm baby.
She rounded the top railing and walked to the threshold of Emily’s bedroom. Jack stood by the window with Emily in front of him standing on the sill. Or rather, bearing some weight on her plump little legs while Jack held her body with his big hands. Emily held the rattle and sucked on the elephant’s trunk, her brown eyes gazing out the window at, most likely, the flag flapping in front of Jack’s house.
Delaney paused silently in the doorway.
“We’re gonna meet Aunt Linda,” Jack said. “You’re going to like Aunt Linda, because…well, because everyone likes Aunt Linda.”
Emily made a little humming sound as she sucked on the elephant trunk.
Delaney wondered if she would like Aunt Linda. Or rather, if she’d trust her to take care of Emily. Not that she thought any relative of Jack’s would hurt her daughter, but Emily could be a strong, willful little thing, and the tiny white-haired lady Delaney was picturing would never have the stamina to take care of her all day every day.
Delaney was somewhat ashamed to admit she hoped that would become obvious to everyone today. As good as it would be for Emily to get individual attention, the idea of Jack’s aunt looking at her every day made her queasy with fear. There was so much resemblance, once you looked for it.
Granted, Aunt Linda wouldn’t be looking for it, but suppose Jack stopped by one day and it just jumped out at her, the way it had at Delaney that day. Well, that would just be disastrous.
“She lives in the city, where all the cars and people and buildings are,” Jack continued. “Maybe she’ll take you for walks. Maybe you’ll come see your buddy Jack on his boat, the Silver Surfer. Maybe one day I’ll get you a Silver Surfer comic book.”
Delaney cleared her throat and moved into the room. Jack turned from the window and held Emily against his chest.
“The city?” Delaney repeated. “Did you just call Harp Cove a city?”
Jack smiled ruefully. “Well, you know. To her it’ll seem like a city.”
She scoffed, smiling. “Sure, to a seven m—” Her words skidded to a halt. Good God—her heart thundered in her chest. She’d almost called Emily a seven-month-old, after leading Jack and everyone else to believe she’d be five months now. Her limbs trembled as if she’d just stepped out of the way of an oncoming bus.
“What?” Jack asked.
“Hm?” she looked back at him dumbly.
“I didn’t understand what you just said.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “Just that calling Harp Cove a city is a stretch even to a baby. But here, let me take her. I’m sure she’s hungry.”
Jack handed her over, and Delaney sat in the rocker with her. Emily made a terrible face when Delaney removed the elephant trunk from her mouth, but the ensuing cry was quickly quieted by the bottle.
Jack watched them with what appeared to be great interest.
“It must be hard for you,” he said, looking at Emily thoughtfully, “doing this all alone.”
Delaney nodded. “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Like today.” She laughed and looked down at Emily’s contented face. “But then, sometimes it’s this wonderful, private thing…this incredible comfort that I get all to myself.”
Their eyes met, Jack’s crinkling at the corners with a gentle smile. “Sounds nice.”
“It is.” Emily squawked and Delaney shifted her, resettling the bottle in her mouth. “But then there are days like today, when I think I’m going to lose my mind.”
“Hm.” He nodded and watched Emily feeding a moment more. “On those days, like today, do you ever get, I don’t know, angry that your husband’s not here to help?”
Delaney grimaced. “Funny you should ask. I felt that way all afternoon.”
And she had, that was the weird thing. She’d been thinking about Jim and what a complete jerk he would be if he actually wouldn’t come up here and help in this situation just because of some job. She’d found herself growing annoyed at the very idea and worked herself up into a lather of self-righteous feminist anger at the arrogance of men who thought their jobs were more important than their families, as if the money were the hard part and not the nurturing and the caring and the being there when they were needed.
“But,” she sighed, “he’s got his reasons, and I have no choice but to respect them.”
“No choice? That doesn’t sound like the Delaney Poole I know.”
She looked up and caught him grinning at her.
“I mean, come on,” he continued. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s not a man’s world anymore.”
She laughed. “I’m glad to know you’ve heard. But the circumstances in this case are—unusual.”
She looked down at Emily, who had dropped off to sleep.
“Guess she was more tired, than hungry,” Delaney said, wishing to change the subject. “Let’s take my car. It’s got the car seat.”
They stood up, and Jack held his hands out for the baby. Delaney handed her to him without thinking, turning to gather up the diaper bag and new elephant rattle before realizing the mild relief she felt at not having to juggle everything herself this time just to get out the door.
“I’ll just go put her in the car seat. Is the car open?” Jack asked.
Delaney turned at looked at him, at his strong, capable arms holding her sleeping daughter, at the comforting, competent look in his eyes—ready to help, ready to solve problems, ready even to unwittingly take some of the burden from Delaney’s shoulders.
His brows rose expectantly at the time it was taking her to answer.
“Yeah, uh, yes. The car’s open.” She turned quickly around and grabbed the blanket that had hung over the back of the rocker. “I’ll meet you down there.”
He took Emily out into the hall, and Delaney stood in the middle of the room as his footsteps descended the stairs. A second later the front door opened, closed, and Delaney stood by the window watching Jack Shepard carry his daughter to the car.
Aunt Linda was not the small, fragile woman Delaney had expected. After Jack knocked on the thick wooden door in the old apartment building it was opened by a tall, strong-featured woman who looked nothing if not strapping.
She wore a denim jumper with a red tee shirt underneath and her long iron gray hair was pulled into a casual bun on the top of her head. Thick leather sandals held sturdy feet.
Delaney looked her over from head to toe before realizing how rude it was, taking in first her height, t
hen her strength, then her sharp blue eyes.
Sharp blue eyes that were simultaneously taking in Delaney and the child sleeping with its head on her shoulder.
“Dr. Poole,” she said in a voice that was probably never lowered. This was a woman who would tolerate no secrets. “Good to meet you.” She held out a hand.
Delaney took it, feeling soft and inconsequential in the grip of this powerful woman.
“Nice to meet you too,” she said. “But please, call me Delaney.”
“Oh, no. I was a nurse for too many years to start that. It’s Dr. Poole to me.” She smiled. “And you can call me Aunt Linda.”
Delaney wondered if she was joking. “It’s kind of you to consider taking care of my daughter,” she said. “I hope Jack didn’t put you on the spot about it.”
“Nonsense,” the woman said in a way that made Delaney feel she meant it—really meant it, in the way that some people don’t want or appreciate compulsory politeness.
“Aunt Linda volunteered,” Jack said, stepping forward and placing a kiss on her cheek. He didn’t have to bend far to do it, they were nearly the same height. “I was telling her about Emily. And you.”
Delaney looked up at him, wondering what he might have been saying about either one of them. He liked her baby? She was a pain in the neck? Something simple like he had a tenant with an infant? But of course she couldn’t ask.
“Come in, come in.” Aunt Linda strode imperiously into the room and threw an arm out toward an old, pillowy couch. “Have a seat. I just made blueberry muffins. Would you like tea or coffee with yours, Dr. Poole?”
She looked back at Delaney with those steely blue eyes, completely confident that of course she would want a blueberry muffin. Delaney wondered if anyone ever contradicted her, but had no desire to do so herself.
“Tea, please,” she said.
“And coffee for you, Jack, I know.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Delaney turned in wonder to look at Jack. With such a woman as this in his life how had he ever become such a ladies’ man? One would think that with Aunt Linda’s influence he’d have nothing but respect for women.
Jack looked down at her and smiled a lazy, knowing smile. “She’s great, isn’t she?”
Delaney resettled Emily on her hip and moved toward the couch. “Yes. She is.”
Aunt Linda reappeared with a pile of muffins in a basket and three mugs on a tray. Delaney felt herself sitting up straighter in her presence.
“So tell me about this little one,” Aunt Linda said after depositing the tray on the table in front of them and swinging a dish towel over her shoulder. She bent over Emily’s sleeping form in Delaney’s arms. “How old is she?”
“She was born in March,” Delaney said.
“March!” Aunt Linda leaned closer, picking up one of Emily’s sleepy hands. “Goodness, but she must have been a big one. She looks to be at least six or seven months to me.”
This woman was far too sharp.
“She’s almost twenty pounds,” Delaney continued, unnerved, as Aunt Linda straightened and gently placed Emily’s hand back on Delaney’s lap. “I’ve got her eating a little cereal, but mostly it’s milk—”
“Breast milk?” Aunt Linda demanded, backing up toward a chair and sitting on the edge of it, leaning forward.
Delaney blushed. “Well, yes…I…” She glanced surreptitiously toward Jack.
“Don’t mind him,” Aunt Linda said with a boisterous laugh. Emily jerked in her sleep at the sound but miraculously didn’t awaken. “He’s heard it all before. His sister’s got three kids, you know. And I’ve always got babies here. So, you’re pumping.”
Delaney was not going to have this conversation in front of Jack. She shot a glance over at him, and said, “Maybe we should go over the details later. I mostly want to be sure you’re interested in having a baby around the house. With all your experience you know how exhausting they can be.”
Aunt Linda gave her a shrewd look. Rather than shrinking under it, as she felt like doing, Delaney leaned forward, grabbed a muffin, and took a bite. The crumbly roll practically melted in her mouth. She looked down at the delicious thing in surprise.
“No more exhausting than a ward full of sick people,” Aunt Linda said. “Or sick children, for that matter. I was a pediatric nurse for the last ten years. So you don’t have to worry about me, Doctor. I’m up to the task. The question is whether Emily and I will get along.”
She nodded toward the sleeping bundle in Delaney’s arms, her gaze softening. Delaney was surprised by the look. With all her no-nonsense talk and strapping sensibility, it seemed babies were a soft spot for Aunt Linda.
“I’m sure you will,” Delaney said. “Emily gets along with everyone. And from what Jack says, so do you. These muffins are incredible.” She popped the last bite into her mouth and picked up the cup of tea.
Aunt Linda laughed her big laugh. “Thank you. But I wouldn’t listen to anything Jack says. He tends to put a smiley face on everything he talks about.”
Delaney raised her brows and looked over at Jack. “Is that right?”
“I just try to balance out whoever I’m with.” He grinned at Aunt Linda.
“Oh, you.” She swatted at him with the dish towel. “So, why don’t you two go out a little while and leave me here with the baby. I don’t want to wake her up, but if you leave for an hour or two, we ought to be able to decide if we like each other well enough.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Delaney began, looking uncertainly at Jack. She put her mug gingerly back on the table. She hadn’t anticipated leaving Emily here. And she certainly hadn’t anticipated going out anywhere alone with Jack.
“Sure,” Jack said easily. “We can go over to the Nest and have a drink. After the day you’ve had, Delaney, sounds like you could use one.”
“Perfect,” Aunt Linda said, standing up. “An hour or two and then come on back.”
“Oh, but…” Delaney looked down at her daughter.
“It’s only an hour, Dee,” Jack said.
The familiar use of her nickname took Delaney by surprise. She looked at him sharply. How did he know she was called that, first of all? And why did it roll so easily off his tongue?
“Yes, go on, relax,” Aunt Linda urged. “You can set Emily down right there on the couch.”
“But the pillows—,” Delaney protested.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave her alone to suffocate. I know all about pillows and stuffed animals. She’ll be sleeping on her back and all that good stuff. Now you two go on.”
She was so insistent that by the time Delaney could even say another word, she and Jack were out the door, leaving Delaney to wonder if Aunt Linda and Jack were in cahoots somehow. To trick her into a date with her nemesis.
“Well, that was neatly done, wasn’t it?” Delaney said, as they walked slowly down the hall to the elevator.
She looked almost dazed by Aunt Linda, the tornado, who had swept them out the door before either one of them could protest. Not that Jack would protest. No, he knew Aunt Linda knew he was attracted to Delaney, and he didn’t put it past her to have arranged this nighttime meeting specifically to give them a chance to go out.
Jack hadn’t confided his suspicions about Delaney’s husband to Aunt Linda, but he had told her he thought there was trouble in paradise. Apparently that was all Aunt Linda needed to hear. Home-wrecker, he thought, chuckling inwardly.
“What are you smiling about?” Delaney asked.
Jack looked over as he pulled the iron gate closed behind them on the old-fashioned elevator. He pushed the lever to “1.”
“Just how ’neatly,’ as you say, Aunt Linda managed to get us out of there.”
“Yes,” she said speculatively, eyeing him. “One might almost think it was planned.”
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall. He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face, though he knew it gained him no points with her.
“Why, Dr. Poole, are you accusing me of something?”
She narrowed her eyes and said nothing.
The elevator car lurched to a halt on the first floor. Jack slid open both gates and stepped back to let her exit.
Their footsteps sounded hollowly on the tile floor of the empty foyer and then they were outside, in the cool August air of Maine’s late summer. They stopped at the bottom of the stoop outside the building. Beside them, the clinic’s sign showered them in white light.
“So, the Hornet’s Nest?” Jack asked.
Delaney looked out into the darkness of the street, light from the sign creating an arc of shine on her hair. “I suppose.” She didn’t move, however, and after a second, she added, “Are you sure Aunt Linda really wants to take care of Emily? I mean, this wasn’t some sort of…she wasn’t just, you know, pretending to so that…”
“So that what?”
She kept her face averted, seeming to study the park across the street with great interest.
“I just got the feeling that she was rushing you and me off, you know, alone. I hope she didn’t think…that is…I hope she’s—oh, I don’t know.” She threw her hands up and let them drop to her sides.
Jack was silent a moment, wondering how to adequately assure her that nobody was doing this as a ruse.
“Listen, Delaney,” he began, and something in his tone, apparently, made her turn and look at him. Her eyes glittered pale in the light from the neighboring sign. “Aunt Linda would never use your child to trick you.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No, don’t be sorry,” he said, reaching a hand out automatically to touch her, but stopping before he did. He put the hand in his pocket. “I understand why you might think that, but no. She’s genuinely interested in taking care of Emily. I promise you.”
She looked up at him, and the vulnerability in her eyes had him crossing his heart with one finger just to keep from taking her into his arms. “Cross my heart,” he added, to complete the stupid gesture.