Читать книгу The Diaper Diaries - Abby Gaines - Страница 10

BETHANY PULLED her knitting out of its bag, propped herself against two large, squashy pillows and checked out the view. Of Tyler’s bedroom. From Tyler’s bed.

This was so undignified, being forced to wait for her employer on his bed. No doubt he’d be less than impressed to find her here.

“It’s his own devious, underhanded fault,” she muttered as she untangled a knot in her wool.

She’d been full of self-congratulatory delight at having inveigled her way into Tyler’s multimillion-dollar home in Virginia Highlands so she could brainwash him into giving her money. Her sense of triumph had lasted through three nights of interrupted sleep, fifteen bottles of formula and thirty thousand dirty diapers.

At least, that’s how many it felt like. It was now Thursday evening, and Bethany hadn’t seen Tyler since the meeting they’d had with social services on Monday afternoon, at which it had been agreed that Tyler would have temporary custody of Ben. Correction: she hadn’t seen him in the flesh. Beside her on the bed was today’s newspaper, featuring a photo of Tyler and Miss Georgia at the opening of an art exhibition in Buckhead on Tuesday.

She tossed the newspaper across the deep crimson bedcover. Who would have thought crimson could look so masculine? It must be the combination of the white walls, the dark polished floorboards, the Persian rug woven in rich reds and blues.

Her cell phone rang, breaking the silence and startling her. Bethany fumbled her knitting, reached for the phone’s off button. She’d spent the past few days dodging calls from her mother and stalling the head of the emergency department at Emory with vague promises that she’d be available for work “soon.”

The one person she wanted to talk to was Tyler. But she hadn’t even said two words to him about her research.

Because the man was never here.

So now, when Ben was napping and Bethany should have been sleeping—the dark circles beneath her eyes were growing dark circles of their own—she was instead relying on the irregular clack of her knitting needles to keep her awake. If she wasn’t careful, Tyler would make one of his lightning raids on the house while she dozed.

She didn’t know how he managed to figure out exactly when she’d be out taking Ben for a walk, or catching forty winks, or at the store stocking up on diapers. But at some stage every day she’d arrive home, or come downstairs into the kitchen, and there’d be…no actual evidence of his presence, just an indefinable sense of order shaken up. And, occasionally, the scent of citrus aftershave, freshly but not too liberally applied.

Tyler wouldn’t elude her today, she promised herself as she hunted for a dropped stitch with little hope of rescuing it. No matter how much Bethany knitted, she never improved, probably because knitting was a means of relieving tension rather than a passion.

Since she’d arrived at Tyler’s home, she’d knitted most of a sweater.

Today, she would relieve her tension by delivering Tyler a brief but salient rundown on childhood kidney disease. Waiting on his bed meant he couldn’t sneak past her; she wouldn’t let him out of the house until she’d said her piece.

Bethany yawned and leaned back into the pillows, letting her eyelids droop just for a moment. Her bed in Tyler’s guest room was very comfortable, but this one was in a different league. It was like floating on a cloud….

THE NEAR-SILENT SWISH of a well-made drawer sliding stealthily closed woke Bethany. She jerked upright.

And saw Tyler standing frozen next to the dresser, holding a plastic shopping bag, watching her watching him.

Bethany roused her wits. “Who are you, and how dare you barge into this house?”

She had the satisfaction of confusing him, but only briefly. Those full lips curved in irritated appreciation of her comment.

“Sorry I haven’t been around, I’ve been busy.” He crossed the room, a picture of relaxed grace, and dropped the shopping bag onto the end of the bed. He stood, clad in Armani armor, looking down at her as if she were a territory he had to conquer before dinner.

“I’ve been busy, too,” Bethany said. Unlike him, she bore the ravages of her day, evidenced in the baby-sick that blotted the shoulder of her sweater, in her lack of makeup, in the hair she hadn’t had time to wash this morning.

“You mean, busy doing something other than snoozing on my bed?” He took a step closer. “Or are you here because you want…something?”

“I want to talk to you.” She scowled. “You were hoping to sneak in and out without waking me, weren’t you?”

“You looked so sweet,” he said blandly, “it seemed a crime to disturb you. Where’s Ben?” He glanced around with casual interest, as if she might have stowed the baby under a pillow. For all he knew, that was exactly what she did each day.

“He’s sleeping.”

Tyler sat on the other side of the bed from Bethany, and farther down so he was facing her. Still too close for her liking. She’d have liked to stand up, but one foot was still asleep, and she’d probably topple over if she tried. She settled for edging away from him.

“That kid’s amazing,” he said. “Every time I come home, he’s fast asleep. I feel as if I’ve hardly seen him.” He must have noticed the anger kindle in her eyes, for he continued hastily, “So, how are you?” His gaze flicked over her from top to toe. “You look tired.”

Didn’t every woman love to hear that?

“I,” she said deliberately, “am exhausted. The reason Ben is asleep whenever you’re around—” she pointed her knitting needles at him for emphasis “—is because he’s awake every other minute of the day. And night.”

“Careful, Zorro.” Tyler reached out and deflected the needles, which were almost stabbing him in the chest. “It’s not my fault if I don’t hear Ben at night.”

“The only way you wouldn’t hear him is if you’re wearing those earplugs Olivia bought you.”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

Bethany narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you can’t hear him because you’re sleeping somewhere else.”

He appraised her through thick lashes. “I’ve been right here every night. In this bed.”

She didn’t need to think about that.

“Alone,” he added mournfully.

With that newspaper article visible from the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help saying, “Things not going well with Miss Georgia?”

“That would be your business…how?”

“It’s the whole city’s business, if you read the newspaper. Besides, if she dumped you,” Bethany said hopefully, “and you’re looking for an excuse to see her again, you can set me up to brief her about my research. She gets a lot of media coverage, she might be a useful spokesperson.”

“Nice idea, but I think she has her hands full with world peace. And in the unlikely event of a woman dumping me, I won’t need your help in patching things up.” He leaned forward and grabbed the plastic shopping bag, which bore the logo of a local independent bookstore. He pulled out several books, stacked them on the nightstand on his side of the bed. Among them, Bethany recognized one that many of her patients’ parents recommended: What to Expect the First Year. He crowned the pile with Real Dads Change Diapers.

He caught her watching him. “Obviously I’m philosophically opposed to this last one.”

“I noticed,” she said. “Still, it looks as if you’re willing to be educated. So you’ll be interested to learn that if researchers could figure out how to control antibody-producing cells, kidney patients might be able to accommodate transplanted organs from incompatible donors.”

“Who do you think Ben’s dad is?” Tyler asked.

Bethany counted to five and managed an ungracious “How would I know? Has the private investigator come up with something?”

“Nothing yet. I was just wondering…What if his dad is looking for him?”

Bethany blinked. Tyler had noticed she did that whenever he disconcerted her…which wasn’t as often as he’d like. Too often it worked the other way around.

“Good question, I’ve been thinking more about his mother,” she admitted.

“That’s because you’re a woman,” he said smugly. “It’s hard for you to acknowledge that Ben’s dad has just as much claim on him.” It was a line he’d found when he’d skimmed Real Dads Change Diapers, a somewhat political tome, in the bookstore. He’d also skimmed the index of What to Expect the First Year and found no reference to rabies, which gave him another score to settle with Bethany.

She frowned. “In my experience, fathers love their kids just as much as moms do, though they’re not always as good at showing it. But every kid needs a dad he can rely on. Maybe not so obviously at Ben’s age, but in a few years’ time he’ll need someone to show him what being a man is all about.”

Tyler was sorely tempted to pull out a pen and make notes. Bethany was more useful than any number of books when it came to getting up to speed on baby issues.

Bethany continued. “I’m not a guy—” stating the obvious, he thought, scoping out the fullness of her breasts in her thin, ribbed sweater “—but I’d bet being a father is the most rewarding, fulfilling, hope-giving experience a man can know. It’d beat those other coming-of-age experiences—first car, first girlfriend, graduation—hands down.”

Enthusiasm lit Bethany’s face, emphasizing its pixieish quality. Very cute. Then she added, “If you talk to some of the fathers of children in the kidney ward at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta—”

Okay, now she’d gone past quotable and was riding her hobbyhorse into earnestness.

“Fascinating though this is,” Tyler interrupted her, “I’m due at dinner in half an hour. You’re welcome to stay, but I need to get changed.”

“Miss Georgia again?” she said coolly, ignoring his invitation.

He folded his arms. “You seem overly interested in Miss Georgia.”

Bethany flushed. “I’m interested in the fact you’re never here with Ben.”

“Right,” he said dryly. They both knew she wanted him here so she could spout kidney facts. “The fact is, I pay you to care for him.” Damn, he could sense another of her lectures coming. He said quickly, sympathetically, “You know, you wouldn’t be the first woman to be jealous of Miss Georgia.”

Her outraged gasp had him stifling a smile. “I’m about as jealous of Miss Georgia as I am of that table leg.” She waved at the nightstand.

“That’s a very shapely table leg,” he conceded, “but you shouldn’t put yourself down.” He eyed her sweater again, noticed that it had worn perilously thin in places. “You have a great figure.”

She drew herself up, and her indignation had the interesting effect of swelling her bosom. “My figure has absolutely nothing to do with—”

“There’s every chance you’ll find a boyfriend one day,” he continued.

“I have a boyfriend,” she snapped.

That was unexpected. Even more out of left field was Tyler’s sudden urge to tear a telephone directory in half with his bare hands—he’d never indulged in primal-male competitive behavior. Finding Bethany curled on his bed asleep, one arm flung behind her head, her lips parted, must have struck a chord with some unconscious fantasy, and it had obviously unbalanced him. He forced himself to say lightly, “Is he deaf?”

“Of course he’s not deaf!”

“I just wondered how he puts up with you.” He dodged vengeful knitting needles. “What does he think about you living with me?”

“He’s not exactly a boyfriend,” she admitted. Tyler’s testosterone surge ebbed slightly. “Kevin is just…someone I see sometimes.”

“Ah.” Tyler put all the knowledge of a man who knew every nuance of dating into the syllable. “Someone convenient. I’ve had plenty of those.”

Bethany raised an eyebrow. “Convenient boyfriends?”

He grinned. “Plenty of convenient girlfriends.”

She sniffed. “Emphasis on the plenty.”

“Emphasis on the convenient,” he corrected. “Did it occur to you that you might get further convincing me about your funding if you were nice to me?”

“You have more than enough people being nice to you,” she said. “I plan to stand out from the crowd.”

No matter that even sitting on the bed she was discernibly shorter than him, she was giving him that superior look down her nose. He said, “I don’t have any trouble noticing you.”

No trouble at all.

His gaze locked with hers across the bed, and there was a connection that Tyler figured even Bethany couldn’t deny. It made no sense that he should find her so attractive—she dressed like a color-blind bag lady, she persisted in judging him according to her own overemotional standards and she was a pain in the backside.

But since when had sex and sense had anything in common, beyond the fact that they were both one-syllable words starting with S?

He leaned closer to her, which prompted her, gratifyingly, to lick her lips. His gaze zeroed in on that full mouth.

“Tyler,” she warned, “I am not sending out signals. Not now, not ever.”

He shook his head. “You are so deluded. One day you’re going to wake up to this attraction, and when you do, I’ll be here.”

“Never,” she insisted.

“You’re making this hard on yourself,” he chided her. “The longer you hold out, the more there’ll be egg all over your pretty face when you have to admit it.”

Bethany put a hand to her face involuntarily, then scowled when he laughed.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to make this easier on you.”

“You’re going to walk out that door and have dinner with your girlfriend?”

“Uh-uh,” he chided her. “Miss Georgia is fun, but she’s not my girlfriend. Now, Peaches, I’m going to figure out a signal you can give me so you don’t actually have to say out loud that you want me.” He added kindly, “I understand that might just about choke you.”

He took his time pretending to think, all the while enjoying the sight of her on his bed. Obviously sensing he planned a handson demonstration, she backed up against the headboard. “Don’t touch me.” Her voice held irritation, panic…doubt.

“Just this once,” he said, “so you’ll know what I mean.”

In one graceful movement, Tyler shifted so close to Bethany that she could see the gold flecks in his blue eyes. Just as plainly as she could read the amused condescension in them. He stretched a finger toward her, and Bethany forced herself not to flinch. Let him play his stupid game.

“This is what you need to do,” he said softly. His finger found the tender skin just below her left ear, traced the line of her jaw. He tilted her chin so she was looking directly into his eyes and smiled down at her. Appreciatively. Seductively. And Bethany, dammit, was only human. She smiled back. If more world leaders were women, she thought, the USA would have a secret weapon right here in Tyler Warrington.

“That’s all you have to do, Peaches, to tell me you want me.”

Reason found her again, and Bethany jerked away from his touch. “Never going to happen.” To her horror, she sounded breathless. And her jaw, where his finger had traced, felt tight, tingly.

Tyler laughed. “Never say never.” His mission of throwing her off her stride apparently accomplished, he got off the bed and said briskly, “By the way, if I don’t see you when I get in tonight, I need you to bring Ben to my office tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”

Now he was done toying with her, he was dismissing her.

“Tyler,” she said firmly, “I need to talk to you about my research. Now.”

“Go ahead,” he invited, surprising her. Then he unbuckled his belt. His hand hovered over the button of his pants. “You don’t mind if I get changed while we talk, do you?”

If she’d been braver, or at least less prone to blushing, she would have told him to go right ahead. But with her face in flames, Bethany scrambled off the bed and almost ran from the room.

AT THREE-THIRTY on Friday, Olivia was typing the latest batch of rejection letters Tyler had asked her to send out, when the door to her office opened. She looked up.

And thought, Call Security.

A hobo stood framed in her doorway. A giant hobo, more than six feet tall, enormous shoulders made broader by a grubby overcoat. His hair, an unkempt salt-and-pepper mix of brown and gray, grazed his collar, and Olivia judged the matching stubble on his chin to be at least three days’ growth.

She reached for the phone.

“I’m Silas Grant,” the hobo announced.

Two things stayed Olivia’s hand. First, his name seemed familiar. Second, the words were uttered in a voice that was slow to the point of sleepiness, gravelly…and unquestionably educated.

As she puzzled over that riddle, he walked toward her with a silent, purposeful tread at odds with his sleepy voice. That lithe, almost graceful gait would have worried her if she’d been walking down a darkened street, but here she couldn’t believe he posed any threat. Other than to her discriminating taste in fashion. His brown corduroy trousers were pale and worn at the knees, and over them he wore a heavy shirt in brown and green plaid, buttoned to the neck, but untucked. But while they may have been more suited to gardening, the clothes did appear clean. Unlike the overcoat.

“I’m here to see Tyler Warrington,” he said.

Now that he was up close, Olivia saw he had gray eyes, but they weren’t at all cold. They held the deep, dormant heat of ashes, beneath which lurked the potential, if stirred by just a hint of breeze, for fire.

“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Grant?” She knew he didn’t—neither she nor Tyler believed in Friday-afternoon appointments. Tyler invariably had a hot date to prepare for, and, often enough, so did Olivia. Today she planned to be gone by four; she’d promised Gigi Cato she would come by to approve the floral arrangements for this evening’s soiree. It was inconvenient—she’d have to drive home from Gigi’s to change, then turn around and go straight back to the Catos’ again—but what were friends for?

Silas Grant frowned. “How could I have an appointment,” he asked gently, “when Tyler Warrington can’t see a conservation crisis when it’s right in front of him?”

Conservation crisis? Olivia remembered where she’d read those words.

“You’re the man with the red-spotted tree frog,” she said, pleased with herself. She couldn’t quite remember if the spots were red or yellow.

“Hyla punctatus,” he said sternly.

It took Olivia a moment to realize he wasn’t uttering some dreadful curse over her, but rather was giving her the Latin—or was it Greek?—name of the frog.

“It’s on the verge of extinction,” he said. “And Tyler Warrington just signed its death warrant.”

He spoke slowly, even for a Georgian. The pace lent an unlikely authority to his words, went some way toward countering his oddball appearance. But not far enough.

“I’m Olivia Payne, Mr. Warrington’s secretary. I’m afraid he’s unavailable,” she told him with the dismissive, wellbred Atlanta-belle tone that had served her through her years as a debutante, then as a single woman. Olivia was an expert at giving men their marching orders. Over the years, she’d broken off no fewer than six engagements. Possibly seven, if you counted Teddy Benson, who’d popped the question three years ago. She’d seen the light faster than normal, and broken it off even before the engagement announcement hit the newspapers.

“Thank you so much for stopping by,” she added pleasantly to Silas. Because one should always be polite in one’s dismissal.

He planted both hands on her desk, which might have intimidated her if he’d done it any faster than a hedgehog crossing the road. The movement put his eyes level with hers, close enough to break through the professional distance she’d set with her voice.

She dropped her gaze, and observed that his hands were clean, his fingernails cut so neatly they might be manicured. She recalled that the tree-frog funding application had come from an address in Buckhead—could this man really live in the most expensive area of Atlanta?

“I won’t take no for an answer,” he said, and there was a hint of steel behind the soft drawl.

While his announcement might be tiresome—at this rate she’d be late to Gigi’s house—it was nothing Olivia couldn’t handle.

“Mr. Grant, as you were told in the letter you received, the foundation does not enter into correspondence about its endowment decisions.” The same clean-break policy worked well with fiancés, she’d found. “I understand you’re disappointed, but I can assure you, Mr. Warrington will not see you.”

He straightened, but only so he could reach one long arm to pull up a chair. “I’ll wait,” he said, and sank into it, legs stretched out in front of him.

This had happened before, so she said, “As you wish,” and returned to her typing.

Most people started to fidget within two minutes. After five minutes, they’d bluster some more. But when they saw she wouldn’t be moved, they’d leave. The longest anyone had stayed was fifteen minutes. Something about silence unnerved them.

Today, it was Olivia who was unnerved. Silas didn’t fidget, not once, for fifteen minutes. He sat with his arms folded, quite still.

She kept her gaze fixed on her screen and wished the phone would ring with a summons to collect something from another part of the building, so she’d have a reason to move. But for once, no one called.

“Who else have you refused money to lately?” Silas’s abrupt question startled her, so that she mistyped a word and looked at him before she remembered not to.

“It’s not my money to give,” she said politely. She added, “Nor is it Mr. Warrington’s.”

“What are your views on conservation and the environment?” he asked.

He really did have an attractive voice, one that almost made her want to say those things mattered to her. But, in this respect at least, she was always honest. Better to admit an unnatural lack of sentiment than to pretend to care.

“I don’t have any.” She was concerned, of course, that the planet shouldn’t be flooded or burned up as a result of global warming. But that wasn’t going to happen in her lifetime, so she didn’t lose any sleep over it.

“Hyla punctatus is a Georgia native, not found anywhere else in America.”

“I’m aware of that. From your funding application.”

He ran a considering gaze over Olivia. She half wished she’d had her roots done this week. She wasn’t out to impress him, she scolded herself. And if she was, her hair, worn loose today in its sculpted bob, her artfully applied makeup and the emerald-green cashmere polo-neck that made her neck look longer and slimmer would surely withstand his scrutiny.

“You know what this world lacks?” he said.

She pressed a hand to her mouth and gave a ladylike yawn.

“People who care.” Sharpness tinged his words.

Of course she knew that! She said lightly, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

Fire sparked into life in his eyes, and his jaw jutted beneath the mouth that she now noticed was firm and well shaped behind all those whiskers.

Olivia had the same keen appreciation for good-looking men that she did for silk lingerie and French champagne. Each of her seven fiancés had been gorgeous by anyone’s standards. So she could only look at Silas Grant and rue the waste of such a fine specimen.

She wondered why his bizarre appearance didn’t exempt him from her appreciation. Discomfited by the thought that perhaps, now that she’d turned fifty-five, she might be desperate enough to let her standards slip, Olivia looked away.

“It’s exactly your kind of apathy that’s sending this world to hell in a handbasket,” he growled.

She’d obviously pressed one of Silas’s buttons, because he began to decry, albeit in an undramatic way, the parlous state of the world, the shallowness of materialism and the loss of life’s simple pleasures.

Olivia, who collected designer handbags, liked to dine on Wagyu beef and had two real fur coats in her wardrobe that she resented being unable to wear, struggled to sympathize.

Yet still, Silas Grant mesmerized her, whether with that unexpectedly cultured voice or with his sheer size. When she found herself wondering what he would look like with a shave and a tuxedo, she realized this had gone far enough.

“What will it take to convince you to leave?” she said abruptly, heatedly. She’d never reacted like this before, not to any of the cranky rejectees who’d turned up here.

“Your promise that you’ll ask Warrington to meet me.” Either Silas had the good sense to say no more, or he’d run out of steam.

Olivia was so relieved to hear the end of that gentle diatribe that she agreed. “I’ll let you know Mr. Warrington’s response.”

“Thank you.” The two syllables stood stark, and for one moment, Silas sounded alone, as alone as Olivia.