The Non-Commissioned Baby. Maureen Child

never wanted kids.

      Scowling in disgust, Jeff looked up and down the third floor’s long hallway again. Not a sign of anybody. Wouldn’t you know it? Where were his nosy neighbors when he really needed them? Sure, at eleven o’clock in the morning, no one was around. But let him come home at 2:00 a.m. with his date for the evening, and at the very least, old Mrs. Butler would have her head poked out her open door.

      Glancing back at the Scream Machine, he noticed an envelope jutting up from the side of the basket, half-covered by a brightly colored knitted blanket.

      Despite the thread of worry that had suddenly erupted in his bloodstream, Jeff reached down and plucked the envelope free. Slowly, dreading what he would find, he turned it over.

      He cursed again, louder this time, as his gaze locked on his own name scrawled across the front of the envelope.

      Captain Jeffrey Ryan, United States Marine Corps.

      A baby on the doorstep? Things like that didn’t really happen, did they? His fingers suddenly clumsy, he tore at the sealed flap and pulled out the folded papers. Smoothing them out, he read the note first.

      Captain Ryan—Sorry to just leave the baby like this, but you weren’t answering your door and I’ve got 45 minutes to catch a transport to Guam.

      He paused. A fellow Marine had done this to him?

      I volunteered to bring you the baby. The Sarge’s will is enclosed, too, just so’s everything’s legal. A shame about the Sarge, but we all know you’ll do right by his kid Signed, Corporal Stanley Hubrick.

      The Sarge? Jeff wondered. Sergeant who? And what did Corporal Hubrick mean, he knew Jeff would do right by the kid?

      Head pounding from the baby’s continued screeching, he skimmed the will once, then again, hitting only a few, significant words. Horrified. he lowered the papers and stared accusingly at the infant.

      “No offense, kid, but I am nobody’s guardian.”

      

      Ten minutes later, Jeff was on the phone, the receiver tucked between his ear and his shoulder as he rocked the incredibly unhappy baby in his arms.

      At least it had stopped screeching. For the moment.

      “I can’t believe this,” his sister repeated for the fifth time.

      “You already said that.”

      “You’re the baby’s guardian?”

      “According to this will, yes.”

      “Amazing.”

      “Peggy,” he tried to reason with his sister, “you don’t understand. I can’t do this. What do I know about kids?”

      “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett!” she said.

      He inhaled sharply and gritted his teeth as she laughed.

      “Very funny,” he snarled a moment later, the humor in the situation completely escaping him. “Now, are you going to come down here and help me or not?”

      “Not,” Peggy said, amusement still touching the tone of her voice.

      “Peg—” He stared, horrified as the baby started chewing on the sleeve of his T-shirt. Drool ran down the baby’s cheeks and chin, pooling in the white fabric. “That’s disgusting,” he muttered.

      “What?”

      Snapping back to the bigger problem, he said, “Never mind. Peg, you’ve got to come.”

      “I always said you’d make a great father.”

      Yes, she had, but she had been the only one to think so.

      “Cut it out.” Silently, he shouted at his long-dead parents for gifting his sister with such a warped sense of humor. “This is serious. I’ve got to see about correcting this mess. Fast.”

      “What’s to correct?” she said, and in the background, he heard one of his nephews apparently trying to behead his niece.

      Jeff winced. Maybe he’d called the wrong person for advice on kids.

      Her hand obviously half over the phone, Peggy calmly said, “Teddy, don’t twist your sister’s arm, you’ll break it.”

      Unbelievable. Teddy. A nine-year-old enforcer.

      “Honestly, Jeff,” Peggy spoke to him again. “You’re just going to have to deal with this. Whose baby is it, anyway?”

      The name would be forever etched into his memory. “Sergeant Hank Powell. We served together in the Gulf. According to the note, Hank and his wife were killed in a car accident.”

      “Oh,” soft-hearted Peggy sighed. “How terrible.”

      “Yeah,” Jeff muttered, with a glance at the infant staring at him through wide blue eyes. Heck, he hadn’t seen Hank in years. What had Jeff ever done to make the man hate him enough to saddle him with his kid?

      “Oops,” his sister said abruptly. “Gotta run. Thomas’s violin lesson is in fifteen minutes. Then Tina has ballet and Teddy has—”

      “Karate?”

      She laughed. “No, what am I, nuts? Drums.”

      Good Lord. Then, realizing she was hanging up on him, he panicked. “Peg, I need help. At least until I can figure out how to get out of this.”

      His sister sighed dramatically. After a moment, though, she perked right up. “Of course!” she said. “I’ll call Laura.”

      “Laura?” he repeated. “Laura who?”

      “I don’t know why I didn’t think of her right away,” Peg went on, mostly to herself. “I’m sure she’d be willing.”

      “Willing to what?”

      “Really, Jeff,” Peggy said abruptly. “I’ve got to rush. Call you later to tell you when to expect Laura.”

      “Laura who?” he demanded again.

      A dial tone hummed in his ear.

      Abandoned, Jeff replaced the receiver and looked down at the finally quiet baby cradled against his side. Actually, when it was silent, holding it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation. A peaceful expression crossed the infant’s face, and Jeff breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the worst was over.

      A moment later, he frowned at the sudden, damp warmth spreading down his hip and thigh. Realization dawned. He held the baby out at arm’s length and stared down at his military green boxers.

      Soaked.

      In a much more disgusting manner than his T-shirt sleeve.

      Slowly, he swiveled his appalled gaze to the baby.

      It laughed at him.

      

      Judging from the screams coming from the other side of the door, Peggy’s brother had his hands full. Laura Morgan winced slightly as the baby’s wail hit a particularly high note.

      She forced herself not to reach for that doorknob. Every instinct she possessed told her to go inside, pick up that baby and comfort it. But she had to be sure before she did any such thing.

      Laura laughed at herself. A little late for rethinking. If she hadn’t been sure, would she have taken a commuter flight from Santa Barbara to San Diego almost immediately after talking to Peggy? Would she even now be standing outside Captain Jeff Ryan’s apartment, her life neatly packed into three battered suitcases?

      Okay, fine. So she wanted the job. So it had seemed like a gift from the gods the minute Peggy had mentioned it. Laura loved babies. Had always planned on having several of her own by now. She frowned slightly. The best-laid plans, et cetera.

      Now here she was,