Baby in His Arms. Линда Гуднайт

up beside Haley, bringing with him the scent of woodsy aftershave and pressed cotton. She tried not to notice but she liked scents. She liked them a lot.

      “I can fly her there.”

      Haley shivered at the thought. No way was she going up in his death machine with a baby. Or with anyone else for that matter.

      “Thanks, Creed,” Dr. Ron said, “but no need at this point. Right now, the baby looks good. Not very big, but at six pounds two ounces and eighteen inches long, she’s big enough. Formula and diapers and a lot of love should fix her right up. If anything medical presents, Haley will let me know. Right, Haley?”

      “Absolutely.” She reached for the baby. Too late, she saw the grass stain on her fingers.

      “You’re not taking her, are you?” Creed’s voice was incredulous.

      Haley bristled. As Wilma transferred the baby to Haley’s arms, she said, perhaps a bit stiffly, “The social worker called me. I am a certified foster parent. Taking care of displaced children is what I do.”

      So she sounded defensive and more than a little testy. The man’s attitude ticked her off.

      His doubting gaze drifted from her frizzy hair to her stained hands and down to the chipped polish on her toenails. A flare of nostrils indicated he’d seen the dirt on her feet, too. “You do?”

      With those two words, he made her feel about an inch tall. The jerk.

      “I was working in my garden,” she said hotly and then wondered why she felt the need to defend herself to him. A helicopter pilot. Ugh.

      “Haley is an excellent foster parent.” Melissa’s gracious comment mollified her some, though not completely, after Creed had insinuated the opposite.

      Creed still didn’t seem convinced. “You’ll take good care of her, won’t you? She’s really small.”

      The man was hovering. She wanted to dislike him. She wanted to tell him to get lost, but he had found the child. Maybe he actually cared.

      She softened a bit. That was it. Perhaps he wasn’t criticizing her. He was genuinely interested in the baby’s welfare.

      “She’ll be fine.” Haley jiggled the infant for effect, noticing how avidly the little girl sucked at the bottle.

      “Right. Okay.” Creed stepped back, but his gaze remained on the nursing child who was now dressed in an oversize yellow drawstring gown.

      Haley was forever amazed at the supplies Wilma stocked in that small clinic. “I can assure you, she will be well-cared for until the authorities decide what to do with her.”

      Creed’s lips twisted beneath flared nostrils. He gave her a searing, squint-eyed look she couldn’t begin to comprehend. Then to the chief, he said, “You’ll keep me posted.”

      “Will do. Thanks, Creed.”

      With one last troubled glance at the infant in Haley’s arms, Creed Carter strode out of the clinic.

      He had insulted her, but Haley had the inexplicable feeling that she’d somehow offended the handsome flyboy.

      Chapter Two

      Creed had no idea what he was doing. None whatsoever. If the guys could see him now, they’d bust a gut laughing and he would never live it down.

      With a grunt, he wrestled the giant pink teddy bear from the backseat of his black Jeep and picked his way along a series of odd-shaped stepping stones through a mass of flowers and plants that led to Haley Blanchard’s house. She had plants everywhere, most of which he didn’t recognize. Plants in pots. Plants in half barrels. Plants shooting up around the pavers to brush at his cargo pants. They all seemed to be blooming, the array of scents so vast, he smelled them all and recognized nothing but the pungent odor of dill pickles.

      If the plants weren’t enough to affirm his first impression of Haley, the porch did the trick. She was a tad on the flakey side. Out there. A throwback flower child. A wood nymph who’d lost her way.

      The front porch was cluttered with an array of stuff. A pair of wicker chairs bracketed the front door; a bright blue front door with a wooden purple-and-yellow fish hanging smack in the middle. Running the width of the white framed house, the porch was crowded with a painted milk can, a wrought-iron cart loaded with more plants, various yard ornaments and, to top it all off, there were plaques and signs and an old Coca-Cola thermometer nailed to the siding. In fact, there were so many items jammed in the small space that his eyes couldn’t take them all in.

      Yes, sir, Haley was a flake.

      He asked himself again: What was he doing here?

      Rather than answer his own question, Creed sought a doorbell, and finding none, rapped at the side of the house with his knuckles.

      No answer.

      He knocked again, this time with the outside of his fist.

      The sun was warm, hanging over the edge of the mountain like a giant egg yolk in a bowl of faded blue jelly. A bird of some sort scolded from the huge chinquapin oak in the front yard.

      Creed figured he should forget this dumb idea of his. Go back home, call it a night. He could phone Haley tomorrow.

      But here he stood holding a pink teddy bear. There was no way he was arriving at his apartment complex with this thing in tow.

      “Sorry, pal,” he murmured to the stuffed face. “Somebody’s taking you off my hands.”

      A pair of shiny black eyes gleamed at him in amiable silence.

      He pounded the door once more for good measure and was looking for a clear spot on one of the wicker chairs to park the bear when he heard a woman’s voice coming from the backyard.

      “So that’s where they are.” Hoisting the pink teddy over one shoulder, he made his way around the house. Other than a burst of minty-smelling plants that spilled out of an ancient wheelbarrow, the side yard looked a little bare compared to the front.

      He rounded into the backyard, feeling awkward and uncertain, two emotions he didn’t deal with on a regular basis. He was a confident guy, easy in his own skin. Wonky situations didn’t rattle him, but he’d been rattled all day today.

      Haley was sitting on the back step next to a towheaded boy with a cowlick so prominent that it split the front of his hair into a fountain. She and the boy had their heads together over an unassembled kite. A wide-brimmed straw hat had been cast aside next to her.

      At Creed’s approach, Haley glanced up...and her smile froze. “Oh, it’s you.”

      So much for a jolly welcome.

      “Hi.” He tugged at the neck of his shirt, growing more uncomfortable by the minute. What was he doing here? “I just came by to see...” He looked around and saw no sign of the tiny girl he’d rescued from the church. A frisson of alarm shimmied through him. “Where’s the baby? Did someone already take her away? Did they find the mother?”

      Haley put aside the kite parts and stood, brushing slender hands over the long flowered skirt. She was barefoot. Her hair, parted in the middle, hung to her shoulders, the evening sun burnishing the auburn to a darker red.

      “You didn’t expect a newborn baby to be out here in the backyard, did you?”

      Well, yes, he had. Not that he knew a thing about newborns.

      “Is she still here?”

      Haley stood with hands loose at her sides, watching him as if she’d read his thoughts and knew he considered her a flake. He thought her eyes were brown, but in the glare of sunlight, all he knew for sure was that they were staring a hole through him.

      “Why?” she asked.

      “Why? What kind of question is that?” Frustrated, he thrust his arms out to either side. She was the