Baby in His Arms. Линда Гуднайт

was too flakey to carry on a simple conversation.

      “Never mind. I don’t know what I was thinking by coming here.” He shoved the teddy bear into her arms. “I should go.”

      He started to do a sharp, pride-wounded about-face when she touched his arm.

      “Wait.”

      Her touch was featherlight, but it stuck his feet to the green grass like superglue. He wasn’t a weak man, but he felt a tad wobbly all of a sudden.

      “Why?” he asked and was surprised when she laughed.

      “I guess we’re even.”

      “Even?” What was she talking about?

      “I asked why. You asked why. We’re even.”

      “Ah. Right.” Strange. Flakey. Out-there.

      “Sit down.” With a movement as graceful as a ballerina, she gestured toward the porch. “This is Thomas.”

      That was all. Just Thomas. Not her foster child. Just the boy’s name. Kind of nice.

      “How ya doing, Thomas? You’re building a kite?”

      “Yeah.” The boy’s blue eyes, hidden behind thick glasses, fastened on Creed. He wasn’t very old. Maybe nine or ten. “Haley said you fly helicopters.”

      Creed eased a look toward Haley. She’d talked about him?

      She twitched, and then smooth as a windless flight, she shot him down before he could get cocky. “You flew over the house today. I explained to Thomas that you’d found the baby.”

      No big deal. He didn’t need compliments.

      “So, how is she doing?” Tight as a bowstring, he sat on the step next to the young boy.

      “Sleeping most of the time.” Absently, Haley settled a hand on Thomas’s slim shoulder. He looked up at her and smiled. Something in the gentle gestures loosed a string of tension inside Creed.

      “Is that normal?”

      “You don’t know much about babies, do you?”

      “Nothing.” He lifted one shoulder. “I’m an only child.”

      “Me, too, but I know about babies.”

      “You’re a girl.”

      “Sexist,” she said, though her tone was more amused than insulted.

      “Guilty. I like the differences in boys and girls and think they should be celebrated.” He grinned. “Often and with gusto.”

      “Why am I not surprised?” Haley stood, moving to the back door to listen. “Baby girl is awake.”

      Without waiting to be asked, Creed followed Haley inside the house. He’d come to see the infant and he wasn’t leaving until he did.

      The inside of Haley’s house was unexpected. Where the yard was a riot, the small interior was sparse and tidy. The back door led directly into a country kitchen. Fussy baby sounds came from a long, sand-colored basket on a small, square table that had seen better days.

      “Come here, precious,” Haley cooed as she gently lifted the infant from inside the basket. “Are you hungry? Are you starving? Yes, you are.”

      Creed was fascinated by the change in Haley. Her voice had gone soft and cootchy coo and she asked questions as if a day-old baby knew the answers. The baby’s response was a high-pitched wah-wah-wah.

      “Can I do something to help?” Creed asked above the noise.

      “Hold her while I prepare formula.” Before he could admit that holding a baby made him nervous, she plunked the child against his shoulder. The moment the tiny face touched his shirt, she began turning her head side to side, mouth wide and seeking like a rooting puppy.

      “Hey, why’s she doing that?”

      “She thinks you’re her mama. Rub her cheek with the side of your finger.”

      He did. The baby turned toward the touch. “She’s soft as a—”

      “Rose Petal. That’s what I call her.” Haley produced a baby bottle of water, scooped some powdery stuff inside and shook the bottle hard.

      “You call her rose petal?”

      “She doesn’t have a name. I have to call her something.”

      A sharp pain twisted in Creed’s gut. A baby should have a name, a real one, well-thought out and dreamed about. But he didn’t say that. Haley would think he’d gone soft in the head.

      “Hippie name,” he muttered. “Rose Petal.”

      Haley took the comment in stride. She widened her eyes and grinned. “Better than sneezewort or moonflower.”

      Nice. She had a sense of humor.

      “Or dandelion,” he shot back.

      “Hey, I like that!”

      “Figures,” he said, grinning to soften the teasingly spoken word. Maybe the flakey foster mom wasn’t so bad, after all.

      Haley moved in close, maneuvering at Creed’s shoulder to slide the bottle nipple between Rose Petal’s seeking lips. Creed tilted his chin down to watch the tiny jaws latch on. Watching Haley’s long slender fingers hold the bottle, Creed caught a whiff of something flowery mingled with the milky scent and realized how very close the three faces were. He lifted his gaze and there was Haley, watching him watching the baby.

      Brown. Her eyes were brown with flecks of gold and a black ring around the irises. A small mole dotted one cheek next to her nose, but instead of detracting, the beauty mark enchanted him. He had a crazy urge to touch it.

      When the baby made soft, contented nursing sounds, Haley smiled into Creed’s eyes.

      A starburst of feeling exploded inside him, warm and colorful.

      It was as if they were a couple and this was their baby. Creed’s pulse did a giddyap, stealing his breath. He was mesmerized by the child and the woman. Their soft, clean smell. Their natural beauty.

      Creed’s head swam and his chest filled with inexplicable tenderness. Flakey Haley must be burning some kind of wacky weed to make his head spin, make him lose his mind. Weird. Very weird.

      The back door opened. Haley glanced in that direction. The strange, tender moment dissipated like dandelions on the wind. Creed found his breath again, though his pulse still galloped.

      What was going on here?

      Bemused and bothered, he eased Rose Petal from his shoulder and handed her off to Haley. The baby was fine, well-cared for. That’s what he’d come here to learn. Now he could leave and not look back.

      Haley stepped away, hugging the baby close. Relief eased the strange tension in Creed’s shoulders. Apparently, the bizarre black-hole magnetism had been one-sided. Haley appeared completely unaffected. He, on the other hand, wondered what had just happened.

      He exhaled another cleansing breath. Better. Much better.

      Get a grip, Carter.

      Thomas came into the kitchen, dragging the pieces of the still-unassembled kite. “Are you going to help me finish this?”

      “Can’t right now, Thomas.” Haley swayed the baby back and forth in her arms.

      Thomas looked dejected, as though the new baby intruded on his turf. Creed supposed she had. To tell the truth, he was so glad for the distraction that Creed said, “I’m a pretty fair kite builder. Want me to help?”

      He should leave. He needed to leave. But he didn’t. Behind Thomas’s thick glasses, Creed spotted an irresistible gleam of excitement.

      “Would you?” Thomas asked. “That would be cool. I bet you know