Beginning With Baby. Christie Ridgway

reeling, Jackson opened his mouth to set her straight. Someone needed to tell Pollyanna here that happy endings like the one she wanted were only in fairy tales. People had a way of going out of one’s life—under their own steam or because they were torn from you. In his thirty years he’d experienced both.

      But then his mouth snapped closed. None of this was his business or the reason he’d knocked on her door. “Listen,” he started. Hell, what was he going to say now? Could he really burst even the smallest of her fantasy bubbles by griping about the kid? “I came over because—”

      At the sound of Jackson’s voice, the baby started squalling again. Phoebe patted, shushed, rocked, but nothing worked.

      Accepting defeat, actually a little glad about it, Jackson shuffled backward. Much easier to hit the nearest discount store for earplugs and a white-noise machine.

      But Phoebe wasn’t having it. She reached out and caught his sleeve, obviously determined to be the good neighbor, at least in this. “Did you come to borrow something?” she asked, pitching her voice over the baby’s crying.

      “Some sleep,” Jackson muttered.

      “Something sweet?”

      He threw up his hands. With the baby crying and her morning eyes on him, he couldn’t put more trouble on her plate. “Yeah,” he conceded. “I came over to borrow some sugar.”

      “Oh, certainly,” Phoebe said, with another one of those sunny smiles.

      And that’s when it happened.

      She cast a look toward her kitchen.

      Cast another at the crying child.

      He read the difficulty on her face. How to get that sugar and soothe baby Rex, too? Ironic, when Jackson didn’t even want the stuff.

      But letting her get something for him seemed the fastest way out of there, so, for the first time in what seemed like forever, he volunteered for child duty. “Give him to me,” he said.

      She hesitated, but probably figured Rex couldn’t be any less content. With careful movements, she transferred the baby to him. At the sensation of the warm, vulnerable weight in his arms, Jackson sucked in a sharp breath.

      Rex’s crying immediately stopped.

      Darkish eyes stared up at Jackson. A tiny fist waved about as if controlled by a mad puppeteer.

      Jackson concluded the kid was stunned by its first closeup of an overworked male in serious need of eight hours of hibernation. But even after a few moments, the crying didn’t restart. The baby’s movements actually calmed, and as Jackson hitched him closer to his chest, Rex appeared to fall asleep.

      More irony. Of the two of them, the wailer was the one getting the rest.

      He looked across at Phoebe. She was staring at them, apparently stunned.

      Jackson lifted his shoulders in a small shrug, more than a little surprised himself. Yeah, in the past he’d had a way with kids. But who could have guessed that after fourteen years without use, it was the one thing he hadn’t left behind.

      Chapter Two

      Jackson was out of his boots and into his breakfast the next morning when he heard a knock at his door.

      He knew who it was, which was why he took another swig of cola instead of going to answer it. Through the walls Rex cried again—the baby had sounded unhappy ever since Jackson had returned from work. And even though it was just after six, he suspected the baby had been awake for some time. The knock came again, percussion to Rex’s noisy discontent.

      It was Phoebe Finley and the baby at his door, of course, and he planned on ignoring them until they went away. He didn’t want to encourage any neighborly tête-à-têtes, any more than he wanted to find himself close to that baby again.

      Once was enough.

      Becoming acquainted with Phoebe and the child who wasn’t hers—but that she obviously cared so much for—was a scenario much too close for comfort. He’d been in her size sixes before, desperately wanting to hold on to someone—in his case, someones—who could be wrenched away.

      Jackson wasn’t stupid enough to get entangled, even peripherally, in that kind of setup again.

      The baby must have paused to take in a breath, because in the momentary quiet, Phoebe’s voice sounded through his hollow-core front door.

      “Jackson! Jackson! Please answer. I’m in dire need of a good neighbor.”

      That left him out, Jackson thought smugly, but then her voice pleaded again. “Help,” she said.

      God, even if his brain wasn’t stupid, his feet sure were. The two of them pushed against the floor to get him standing and even walked him to the door. His hand didn’t hesitate to open it, though his good sense limited it to only a couple of inches.

      Dark hair tumbling, blue-gray eyes pleading, two even, white teeth doing a number on her full lower lip. “My hero,” Phoebe said.

      “I’m not.” He glanced at Rex, whose head had jerked toward Jackson at the sound of his voice. “What’s the problem?”

      She bit her lip again. “Our landlady, Mrs. Bee, and about two-thirds of our fellow tenants. Rex has been awake and unhappy since 4:00 a.m., and I’ve received complaints. Mrs. Bee is starting to make odd threats.”

      Jackson grimaced. While their elderly landlady looked like something off a bakery box, he knew she was better suited to selling nails, as in “tough as.” But he turned his grimace into a forbidding frown. “So?”

      She swallowed. “So I thought maybe you could do your magic on Rex and get him to sleep again. He must be exhausted, and it didn’t take you but a couple of minutes yesterday.”

      It was Phoebe who looked exhausted. Shadows circled her eyes, making them that much bluer, and her appearance that much more fragile. But Jackson ignored the observation. “No,” he said, swinging the door closed. “I’m in the middle of breakfast.”

      The wooden door bounced off a small white sneaker. “Please. Couldn’t you eat and hold him at the same time?”

      Years ago he’d been able to do that with both arms full of babies.

      “Please,” she said again. “I wouldn’t ask, but I think I really need to appease Mrs. Bee right now.”

      Telling himself he was making up some badly needed points in Heaven, Jackson reluctantly opened the door. She came right inside, smiling over her shoulder at him. “Once you sit down I’ll hand him to you.”

      The smile died as she took in the Spartan bareness of his apartment—a threadbare couch, a couple of orange crates, a folding table and chairs that served as his dining room.

      He found himself excusing his surroundings. “I’m only here temporarily,” he said, gesturing at the naked walls. “My job requires that I move from place to place.”

      She didn’t say anything, but her eyes widened again as she looked at what was lying on his table. “That’s your ‘breakfast’? Beef jerky and a cola?”

      “It’s turkey jerky,” he defended.

      “Still.” She made a face.

      As if he was tired of being ignored, Rex started fussing again. Jackson sighed. “Hand him over,” he said.

      “Not until you’re seated in front of your…meal.”

      He shot her a disgruntled look as he sat down. “Listen, I work nights and my stomach’s on a different time clock than yours, okay?”

      “It’s on a different planet than mine,” she said mildly, but then walked toward him and handed over the still-mildly fussing Rex.

      The baby immediately