The Baby Chronicles. Lissa Manley

of babies would do that.

      Dragging his gaze away, he fisted his hands at his sides. He had to concentrate on his work, not how his memories of her had helped him through the darkest hours of his life.

      Despite that one and only benefit of his past relationship with her, he couldn’t ever let himself forget that she’d coldheartedly eviscerated him. End of story. He refused to let himself care about her beyond working on this article together.

      “Dammit, Colleen.” He reached out and tugged on her elbow. Her soft, peachy scent assaulted his senses. “We have to work together.”

      She spun around and the papers in her hands fluttered to the floor. She jerked away. “Do you mind?”

      He dropped his hand. She was right. He shouldn’t be touching her. “All I want to do is talk—”

      “We’ll talk about the story, nothing more.”

      “Hey. Cool. That’s exactly what I was going to say. So you’re going to find a way to work with me so we can collaborate on a quality piece?”

      She froze, staring, and a whisper of naked vulnerability flashed in her eyes. She looked down and slowly turned back to the file cabinet, shutting him out again.

      He opened and closed his fists, determined not to let himself wonder or care about her vulnerability—or anything else about her. “I’m not going to let you ruin the spread. This is too important to me to let you do that.”

      She twisted back around and met his gaze, then opened her mouth to speak, but clamped it tightly shut. She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them, a studied blankness assailed him.

      To his irritation, right on cue, as if he’d been plunked down in the past, his chest pulled tight. He ignored the tugging sensation, determined not to give a rip about Colleen again. He’d seen that expression before, more times than he could count. Thankfully her utter blankness, so familiar, so damn steadfast, didn’t matter anymore.

      He wouldn’t let it.

      “I…uh, I need to get something. I’ll be right back.” She walked from behind her desk and left him standing alone in her cube.

      He swore under his breath, looked at the ceiling and rubbed the back of his neck. Casting a glance around her tiny cubicle, he again noticed the mounds of paper covering every inch of her desk and most of the floor. A yellowing, half-dead plant swimming in water sat in one corner, and its brown, dried-up twin sat on the corner of her desk. Stacks of file folders and empty office-supply boxes crowded the top of the file cabinets. The place was an absolute mess.

      He frowned. He remembered Colleen as being pretty neat and well organized, and her appearance today was polished and put-together. Why was her office so filled with clutter? Was she just too busy to straighten up once in a while? And why was she so damn fidgety?

      He shook his head. He had to admit, she seemed different. The glimpse of vulnerability he’d seen in her eyes earlier was totally unexpected and so unlike what he remembered about the confident, wisecracking Colleen he’d fallen in love with.

      And why was she so bothered to be working with him? She’d seemed to escape absolutely unscathed by their breakup. He’d seen her in a bar the night before he’d left for Afghanistan, happily dancing up a storm with every guy in the place. Stuff like this didn’t usually bother her.

      Yeah, Colleen had changed. Despite that observation, she was as much a mystery as she’d always been, a mystery he would solve only for the sake of “The Baby Chronicles” and his career as a baby photographer.

      As much as he hated it, to build the new life he wanted, he had to discover a way to work with her effectively.

      Taking a deep, shaky breath, Colleen dropped into a chair in the small room that served as the break/lunch area for the employees of the Beacon, thankful lunchtime was over. She needed a few minutes alone to get a hold of herself.

      To find a way to keep Aiden from getting to her.

      She plopped her chin in her upturned palm and looked around the room. The light blue walls were adorned with gold-framed copies of old issues of the Beacon. One wall held a new white refrigerator, shiny black dishwasher, gleaming chrome sink, speckled blue counters and white wood cabinets. Newspapers and magazines covered the surfaces of the three small, round metal tables, and unwashed coffee cups sat on the counter between the sink and microwave oven, along with an assortment of plates, empty junk-food containers and pop cans. The place was a disaster.

      Kind of like her. Looked good on the outside, a mess on the inside. Mercy, she was such a product of her loveless childhood, spent first with her neglectful, flaky parents, and later, in a verbally abusive foster-care home. She shuddered, remembering the terrible, lonely place where her only purpose had been to act as a live-in baby-sitter for the rest of the younger kids and as a verbal punching bag for her alcoholic foster mother.

      She shook her head, recoiling from those terrible memories, focusing on the here and now, which, unfortunately, was inevitably intertwined with her past.

      Was that why Aiden had thrown her into such a tizzy? She frowned and pinched the bridge of her nose, taking control of her spiraling, disconcerting emotions. Tizzies, she’d discovered at an early age, were useless and only brought on someone else’s anger, targeted at her. She always made sure that she managed herself well enough to avoid them. But not today.

      She’d run from her office like a frightened little girl, letting Aiden take control of her emotions.

      What was wrong with her?

      She didn’t have the answer to that important question, just as she hadn’t had the answer eight years ago. Aiden’s ability to open the door to her wants and desires and her inability to fight that power had scared her to death and forced her to break up with him.

      But that was then, and this was now, and Aiden was back in her life for the next few days. She had to find a way to keep an even keel, to keep herself under protective control.

      A startling thought occurred to her. Had he deliberately sought her out?

      No, he’d been genuinely surprised when he’d discovered he was going to be working with her. It was just an odd coincidence they’d been thrown together again. Though not all that odd when she thought about it. She and Aiden were both journalists. Also, most of Aiden’s huge family probably still lived close by in Oak Valley; it made sense he’d return to Portland to be near his four siblings and parents. Just another reason she’d run, having been unable to deal with the prospect of being around his big, traditional family, light-years from her horribly dysfunctional one.

      And whether she liked the current situation or not, she had a job to do. She was going to have to go away with him to complete the article. It was time to buck up and do her job without letting Aiden bother her.

      Standing, she paced around the small room, forcing herself to fall back on the things that had helped her survive her childhood. Be analytical and rational. Review the situation and formulate a plan.

      One. Aiden was in as photographer. Bad news, but unavoidable.

      Two. They were going to go to Sun Mountain, a resort in central Oregon about four hours from Portland, for a long weekend. Again, too bad, but a done deal.

      Three. Four babies and their parents, all strangers, would be going along, but she and Aiden would be the only other adults there. They would be spending long hours together, working on the article. Just the two of them, for an entire weekend…

      That would be torture.

      Nervous dread twisted her stomach into a knot. How could she do her job but spend as little time with Aiden as possible?

      She stopped pacing and gazed into space for a long moment, her brain humming.

      An idea materialized in her head. She smiled. Yes. She needed a friend to accompany her who would act as a safeguard between her and Aiden, someone she could hang out with to avoid having to deal with Mr. Gorgeous Green