Читать книгу From Paris With Love Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 24
ОглавлениеDYLAN WAS SURPRISED to discover how much he enjoyed playing with the baby. How good it was to hear that rich chuckle and know that he’d given Tyler a moment of pure happiness. If anyone had told him three weeks ago that he’d be having fun waving a toy duck around and quacking loudly, he would’ve dismissed it as utter insanity. But, this afternoon, it was a revelation.
He was actually disappointed when Tyler fell asleep.
Though it wasn’t for long. The baby woke again and started crying, and Dylan picked him up almost on instinct. Then he wrinkled his nose. Revolting. It looked as if he needed another lesson from Emmy. He went to find her in Pete’s study.
‘Problem?’ she asked.
‘He needs a nappy change. Can you show me how to do it?’
‘Ah, no. You’re the one who said, “I do and I understand” is the best. I’ll talk you through it.’
When they went upstairs to the nursery, Emmy did at least help Dylan get the baby out of his little all-in-one suit, for which he was grateful. But then she stood back and talked him through the actual process of nappy-changing.
How could someone so small produce something so—so stinky? he wondered.
He used wipe after wipe to clean the baby.
And it was only when he realised Emmy was grinning that he thought there might’ve been another way of doing it—one that maybe didn’t use half a box of wipes at a time. ‘So you’re perfect at this, are you?’ he asked, slightly put out.
‘No—it usually takes me three or four wipes. Though Ally used to be able to do it in one.’ Her smile faded, and she helped him put Tyler back in his Babygro.
‘I’m going to do some work,’ she said. ‘Call me when Tyler needs a bath. His routine’s on the board in the kitchen, so you’ll know when he’s due for a feed. If he’s grizzly before then, try him with a drink. There’s some cooled boiled water in sterilised bottles in the fridge.’
Again, Dylan was surprised by Emmy’s efficiency. Maybe he’d misjudged her really badly, or he’d just seen her on bad days in the past—a lot of bad days—and taken her the wrong way.
‘Oh, and you need to wind him after a feed,’ she added. ‘Hold him upright against your shoulder, rub his back, and he’ll burp for you.’
‘Got it.’
‘Are you sure you can do this?’
No. He wasn’t sure at all. But he didn’t want Emmy to think that he was bailing out already. ‘Sure,’ he lied.
He carried Tyler downstairs and checked the routine board in the kitchen—which Emmy had somehow managed to get written up properly and laminated while he’d been at work. Apparently the baby needed a nap for about an hour; then he’d need a bath and then finally a feed.
And it was also his turn to make dinner.
He hadn’t even thought about buying food. He’d only focused on the fact that he’d needed to get everything done and leave the office ridiculously early. He opened the fridge door, and was relieved to discover that there were ingredients for a stir-fry. And there were noodles and soy sauce in the cupboard. OK. He could work with that.
Now, how did you get a baby to sleep?
He sat down, settling Tyler against his arm. Sure, he’d given his godson a brief cuddle before, but Ally had understood that he wasn’t used to babies and wasn’t much good at this, so she hadn’t given him a hard time about it. But it also meant she hadn’t talked to him about baby stuff. And Emmy had just left him to it.
‘I have no idea what to do now,’ he said to the baby.
Tyler just gave him a gummy smile.
‘Emmy seems to know what to do with you. But I don’t.’ OK, so he’d enjoyed playing with the baby, but was that all you were supposed to do?
‘She’s abandoned us,’ he said, and then grimaced. ‘And that’s not very fair of me. If she’d stayed, I would’ve assumed she didn’t trust me to do a good enough job with you and was being a control freak. So she can’t win, whatever she does.’
Maybe he needed a new approach to Emmy. And she had given up some of her work time to show him how to care for Tyler. As she’d pointed out, she could’ve left him to muddle through and fall flat on his face, then gloated when he’d made a mess of things. But she hadn’t. She’d played nice.
Maybe she was nice. Maybe he hadn’t really given her a chance, before.
‘I don’t know any nursery rhymes,’ he told the baby. Except for “Humpty Dumpty”. He made a mental note to buy a book and learn some. ‘I could tell you about computer programming.’
Another gummy smile.
‘Binary code. Fibonacci sequence. Debugging.’ He could talk for hours about that. ‘Algorhythms.’
Well, the baby wasn’t crying. That was a good thing, right? Dylan carried on talking softly to Tyler, until eventually the baby’s eyes closed.
Now what? Did he just sit here until the baby woke up again? Or did he put the baby to sleep in his cot? He wished he’d thought to ask Emmy earlier. It wouldn’t be fair to disturb her now. She needed time to get on with her work. And he could really do with checking his emails. OK. He’d put the baby down.
Gingerly, he managed to move out of the chair and placed the baby on his playmat. The mat was nice and soft, and Tyler would be safe there. Did he need a blanket? But his little hands felt warm. Maybe not, then.
While Tyler slept, Dylan caught up with some work on his laptop.
Not that it was easy to concentrate. He kept glancing over at the baby to check that everything was all right.
Eventually Tyler woke, and Dylan saved the file before closing the laptop and picking the baby up. ‘Bath time. We need to go and find Emmy.’
He carried the baby through to Pete’s study. The door was open, and soft classical music was playing. Another surprise; he’d pegged Emmy as someone who would listen to very girly pop music, the kind of stuff that was in the charts and that he loathed. Although he’d gone into the office earlier, he hadn’t really taken any notice. He’d never seen her in a professional environment before, and there was a different air about her. Total focus and concentration as she worked on something that looked very intricate.
If he interrupted her now, would it make her jump and wreck what she was doing?
He waited, jiggling the baby as he’d seen her do, until her hands moved away, and then he knocked on the open door. ‘You said to come and get you when Tyler woke up and it was bath time.’
She looked up from her workbench, smiled, and put her tools down. ‘Sure.’
He caught a glimpse of the work on her bench; it looked like delicate silver filigree. Again, it wasn’t what he’d expected from her; he’d thought that she’d make in-your-face ethnic-style jewellery, or lots of clinking bangles.
‘All righty. We need a bottle of boiled cooled water from the fridge.’ She collected it on the way up to the bathroom.
‘What’s that for?’ he asked.
‘Washing his face—it’s how Ally did it. She has what she calls a “top and tail” bowl.’
‘A what?’
‘To give him a quick wash instead of a bath. But you still use it for his face when you give him a bath.’
‘Right.’
In the bathroom, she put the baby bath into the main bath. ‘It’s easier to use this than to put him in a big bath, because he can’t sit up all on his own yet.’
‘When will he do that?’
‘When he’s about six months old.’
Dylan looked at her, not sure whether to be impressed at her knowledge or annoyed by the one-upmanship. ‘How come you know so much about babies?’ Had she wanted a child of her own? he wondered. Were all women like Nadine, and just woke up one morning desperate for a baby?
‘My bedtime reading,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll lend you the book, if you like—you’ll probably find it useful.’
She undressed the baby, though Dylan noticed that she left Tyler’s nappy on, and wrapped him in a towel. ‘This is just to keep him warm while we’re filling the bath. It needs to be lukewarm, and you need to put the cold water in first—it’s better for it to be too cool, and for you to add a bit more warm water, than the other way round.’ She demonstrated.
‘How do you know when it’s the right temperature?’
‘You check the temperature of the water with your elbow.’ She dipped her elbow into the water. ‘If it feels too warm, it’ll be too hot for the baby.’
‘Why don’t you use that thermometer thing?’ He gestured to the gadget on the side of the bath.
She laughed. ‘That was one of Pete’s ideas. You know how he loves gadgets.’ Her smile faded. ‘Loved,’ she corrected herself softly.
Awkwardly, Dylan patted her shoulder. ‘Yeah.’
She shook herself. ‘OK—now you pour the cooled water into the bowl, dip a cotton wool pad into it and squeeze it out, so it’s damp enough not to drag his skin but not so wet that water’s going to run into his eyes, then wipe his eyes. You need to use a separate one for each eye; apparently that’s to avoid infection.’
‘Right.’ He followed her instructions—which were surprisingly clear and focused—and then worried that he was being too clumsy, but the baby didn’t seem to mind.
‘Now you wash his face and the creases round his neck with a different cotton wool pad.’
When he’d finished doing that, she said, ‘And finally it’s bath time.’ She eyed his clothes. ‘Sorry, I should’ve told you. Tyler likes to splash his hands in the bath, so you might get a bit wet.’
Dylan shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. This stuff will wash.’
She gave him an approving smile. It should’ve annoyed him that she was taking a position of superiority, but instead it made him feel warm inside. Which was weird. Emmy shouldn’t make him feel warm inside. At all. He stuffed that into the box marked ‘do not open’ in his head, and concentrated on the task in hand.
‘What about his hair?’ he asked, looking at Tyler’s soft fluffy curls.
‘Do that before you put him in the bath,’ she said. ‘Keep him in the towel so he’s warm, support his head with your hand and support him with your forearm—then you can scoop a little bit of water onto his hair and do the baby shampoo.’
Dylan felt really nervous, holding the baby—what if he dropped Tyler?—but Emmy seemed to have confidence in him and encouraged him as he gave Tyler a hair-wash for the very first time.
‘Now you pat his hair dry. Be gentle and careful over the fontanelles.’
‘Fontanelles?’ he asked.
‘Soft spots. The bones in his skull haven’t completely fused, yet.’
That made Dylan feel even more nervous. Could he inadvertently hurt the baby? He knew he was making a bit of a mess of it, but she didn’t comment.
‘OK, now check the bath water again with your elbow.’
He dipped his elbow in. ‘It feels fine.’
‘Good. Now the nappy comes off, and he goes into the bath—support him like you did with the Humpty Dumpty thing.’
So far, so easy. Tyler seemed to enjoy the bath; as Emmy had warned him, there was a bit of splashing and chuckling.
Emmy stayed while he got the baby out of the bath and wrapped him in a towel with a hood to keep his head warm, then waited while Tyler did the nappy and dressed Dylan in a clean vest and Babygro.
She smiled at him. ‘See, you’re an expert now.’
Dylan didn’t feel like it; but he was starting to feel a lot more comfortable around Tyler, thanks to her. ‘I’m trying, anyway.’
‘I know you are—and that’s all Tyler would ask for,’ she said softly.
Dylan remembered how he’d thought she was trying in more than one sense; yet she wasn’t judging him that way. He felt a bit guilty. ‘I looked in the fridge. Is chicken stir-fry all right for dinner?’
‘That’d be lovely, thanks.’
‘Good. I’ll call you when it’s ready.’
‘Are you OK about feeding him?’ she asked. The doubts must have shown on his face, because she added, ‘Just put the bottle of milk in a jug of hot water for a couple of minutes to warm up, then test it on the inside of your wrist to make sure it’s warm but not hot.’
‘How do you mean, test it on the inside of my wrist?’
‘Just hold the bottle upside down and shake it over your wrist. A couple of drops will come out. If it feels hot then the milk’s too hot.’ She looked slightly anxious. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way—I’m not meaning to be patronising—but when you feed him you need to make sure the teat’s full of milk, or he’ll just suck in air.’
‘Right.’
‘And when you put him in his cot at bedtime, his feet need to be at the bottom of the cot so he doesn’t end up wriggling totally under the covers and getting too hot.’
‘OK,’ he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
‘Call me if you get stuck,’ she said.
Which would be a cop-out. He could do this. It wasn’t that hard to feed a baby, surely?
He managed to warm the milk, then sat down and settled the baby in the crook of his arm. Remembering what she’d said about the air, he made sure he tilted the bottle. The baby was very focused on drinking his milk, and Dylan couldn’t help smiling at him. There was something really satisfying about feeding a baby, and he wished he’d been more involved earlier in the baby’s life instead of backing off, fearing the extra intimacy.
This was what Nadine had wanted from him. What he hadn’t been able to give, although now he was doing it for his best friend’s child because he simply had no other choice. Except to walk away, which he couldn’t bring himself to do.
He couldn’t imagine Nadine doing this, even though he knew she’d wanted a baby of her own. She wouldn’t have been comfortable exchanging her sharp business suits and designer dresses for jeans and a T-shirt. Dylan simply couldn’t see her on the floor playing with a baby, or singing songs.
Unlike Emmy. Emmy, who’d been all soft and warm and cute...
He shook himself. He hadn’t wanted children with Nadine. So her ultimatum of baby or divorce had given him an obvious choice. And he didn’t want to think about his relationship with Emmy. Because, strictly speaking, it wasn’t actually a relationship; it was a co-guardianship. They were here for Tyler, not for each other.
‘Emotions and relationships,’ he said softly to the baby, ‘are very much overrated.’
When the baby had finished feeding, Dylan burped him in accordance with Emmy’s instructions, then carried him up to the nursery and put him in his cot. There was a stack of books by the cot; Dylan found one in rhyme and read it through, keeping his voice soft and low. Tyler’s eyelids seemed to be growing heavy; encouraged, Dylan read the next two books. And then finally Tyler’s eyes closed.
Asleep.
Good. He’d managed it.
He touched the baby’s soft little cheek. ‘Sleep well,’ he whispered.
Then he headed for the study and knocked on the open door.
Emmy looked up. ‘How did you get on?’
‘Fine. He’s asleep. Dinner in ten minutes?’
‘That’ll be great. I’ll just finish up here.’
She joined him in the kitchen just as he was serving up.
‘OK if we eat in here, tonight?’ Dylan asked.
‘That’s fine.’ She took her first mouthful. ‘This is very nice, thank you.’
He flapped a dismissive hand. ‘It wasn’t exactly hard—just stir-fry chicken, noodles, vegetables and soy sauce.’
‘But it’s edible and, more importantly, I didn’t have to cook it. It’s appreciated.’
There was an awkward silence for a few moments.
Work, Dylan thought. Work was always a safe topic. ‘I saw that necklace you were making. I had no idea you made delicate stuff like that.’
‘You mean you thought I just stuck some chunky beads on a string and that was it?’ she asked.
He felt his face colour with embarrassment. ‘Well, yes.’
She shrugged. ‘There’s nothing wrong with a string of chunky beads.’
He thought of his mother, and wanted to disagree.
‘But no, I do mainly silverwork—and I also work with jet. I carve animals.’
‘Like those ones on the shelf in Tyler’s room?’
She nodded. ‘Ally wanted a Noah’s ark sort of thing, so I’d planned to do her one a month.’
‘They’re very good.’
‘Thank you.’ Emmy inclined her head at his compliment but he noticed that she accepted it easily. She clearly knew she was good at what she did. Just as he was good at what he did. Something they had in common, then.
‘Why jet?’ he asked.
‘We always used to go to my great-aunt Syb’s in the school summer holidays, up in Whitby.’
‘Dracula country,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Well, it’s known for that nowadays, but it’s also the Jurassic coastline, full of fossils—that’s why there’s lots of jet and amber in the cliffs there.’
‘Amber being fossilised tree resin, right?’
She nodded. ‘And jet’s fossilised monkey puzzle tree. They used to use it a lot in Victorian times for mourning jewellery, but it’s been used as jewellery for much longer than that. There are some Roman jewellery workshop remains in York, and archaeologists have found gorgeous jet pendants carved as Medusa’s head.’
Dylan noticed how her eyes glittered; this was clearly something she felt really passionate about. For a second, it made him wonder what her face would look like in the throes of passion, but he pushed the thought away. It was way too inappropriate. He needed to keep his focus on work, not on how lush Emmy Jacobs’ mouth was. ‘And that’s when you got interested in making jewellery, at your great-aunt’s?’
She nodded. ‘We used to go beachcombing for jet and amber because Great-Aunt Syb’s best friend Jamie was a jeweller and worked with it. I was fascinated at how these dull-looking, lightweight pebbles could suddenly become these amazingly shiny beads and flowers. Jamie taught me how to work with jet. It’s a bit specialised.’ She grimaced. ‘I’d better warn you, it does tend to make quite a bit of dust, the really thick and heavy sort, but I always clean up after I’ve worked.’
If she’d said that a week ago, he would’ve scoffed; from what he’d seen, Emmy Jacobs was as chaotic as his mother. But now, having shared a house with her for a day and discovered that she ruled her life with lists and charts, he could believe it. She might appear chaotic, but she knew exactly what she was doing. ‘How do you sell your jewellery? Do you have a shop?’ He hadn’t thought to ask before.
‘No. I sell mainly through galleries—I pay them a commission when they sell a piece. Plus there’s my website.’
‘So what’s the plan—to have a shop of your own?’
She shook her head. ‘If I had a shop, I’d need to increase production to cover all the extra expenses—rent, utilities and taxes, not to mention staffing costs. And I’d have to spend a lot of time serving customers instead of doing the bit of my job that I like doing most, creating jewellery. And then there’s the worry about who’d cover the shop when an assistant was on holiday or off sick...’ She grimaced. ‘No, I’d rather keep it this way.’
She’d clearly thought it all through, taking a professional view of the situation, Dylan thought. He would never have expected that from her. And it shook him to realise how badly he’d misjudged her. He’d always thought himself such a good judge of character. How wrong he’d been.
‘So what actually do you do?’ she asked. ‘I mean, Pete said you’re a computer guru, but I assume you don’t actually build computers or websites?’
He smiled. ‘I can, and sometimes that’s part of a project, but what I do is software development—bespoke stuff for businesses. So I talk to them about their requirements, draw up a specification, then do the architecture.’
‘Architecture?’ She looked puzzled.
‘I write the code,’ he said, ‘so the computer program does what they want it to do. Once the code’s written, you set up the system, test it, debug it, and agree a maintenance programme with the client.’
‘So businesses can’t just buy a software package—say like you do with word-processing, spreadsheets and accounting programs?’
‘Obviously those ones they can, but what my clients tend to want is database management, something very specific to their business. So if they had a chain of shops, for example, they need to have the tills linked with the stock system, so every time they sell something it updates and they can see their stock levels. Once they get down to a certain stock level, it triggers a reorder report, based on how long it takes to get the stock from the supplier,’ Dylan explained. ‘It’s also helpful if the till staff take the customer’s details, because then they can build up a profile for the customer based on past purchases, and can use that knowledge to target their marketing more specifically.’
‘Very impressive,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘It’s basic data management—and it’s only as good as the data you feed in. That’s why the requirements and spec side is important. What the client thinks they want might not be what they actually want, so you have to grill them.’
‘I can see you’d be good at that,’ she said, then winced. ‘Sorry, that was rude. I’m not trying hard enough.’
He should’ve been annoyed and wanting to snipe back; but he liked the fact that she was being honest. Plus he was beginning to suspect that she had quite a sharp wit, something he appreciated. ‘It’s OK. We’ve never really got on before, so we’re not exactly going to be best friends, are we?’
‘No, but we don’t have to be rude to each other, either.’
‘I guess not.’ He paused. ‘So do you use a computer system?’
‘Sort of. I do my accounts on a spreadsheet because I’m a sole trader and don’t need anything more complicated, but I did have my website designed so I could showcase my work and people could buy what they wanted online from me direct. It shows whether the piece they want is in stock or if they need to order it and how long it’ll take—but, yes, I have to update that manually.’
Dylan made a mental note to look up her website. Maybe there was something he could add to it to make her life easier. Which didn’t mean he was going soft; making things run smoothly for her meant that he wouldn’t have to prop up their roster for more than his fair share of effort.
‘So what’s your big plan?’ she asked. ‘Expansion?’
‘Pretty much keep doing what I do now,’ he said. ‘I have a good team. They’re reliable and they’re prepared to put in the hours to get the projects in on time.’
‘And you like your job?’
‘It’s like breathing, for me,’ he said honestly. Something that Nadine had never really quite understood. His job was who he was.
‘Same here,’ she said, surprising him. It was something else they had in common.
When they’d finished the meal, she said, ‘It’s my turn to do the dishes, and I’m not weaselling out of it—but there’s something I need to share with you. Back in a tick.’
She returned with a book and handed it to him.
He read the title. ‘The Baby Bible. What’s this?’
‘You asked me how come I know so much about babies. It’s because of this. I bought it when Ty was born, so I’d know what to do when Ally asked me to babysit. It tells you everything you need to know—how to do things, what all the milestones are.’ She spread her hands. ‘And if that doesn’t work then I’ll bring in my other secret weapon.’
‘Which is?’
She looked slightly shame-faced. ‘Ring my mum and ask her advice.’
He thought about what would happen if he rang his mother and asked for help with a baby. No, it wasn’t going to happen. He was pretty sure his mother hadn’t been able to cope with having a baby or a child, which was why she’d dumped him on her parents so many times. The only person he could’ve asked about babies was his grandmother, but she’d died a year ago now. After he’d married Nadine, but before the final split. And, although she’d never judged, never actually said anything about it, Dylan knew his grandmother had thought the wedding was a huge mistake.
How right she’d been.
What would she think about this set-up?
What would she have thought about Emmy?
He shook himself. ‘Do you need it back soon?’
‘I’ve read it through cover-to-cover once. But if you could leave it in Tyler’s room or the kitchen when it’s my shift, so I can refer to it if I need to, that’d be really helpful.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Do you mind if I go back to work now and do the washing up later?’
‘Sure—and I’m on nights tonight.’
‘I would say sleep well, but...’ She shrugged. ‘That’s entirely up to Tyler.’
‘Yes.’ And Dylan wasn’t so sure he’d sleep well anyway. He still had to get his head round a lot of things. New responsibilities, having to share his space with someone else when he’d just got used to his bachelor lifestyle, and having a totally new routine for starters. Not to mention that getting to know Emmy was unsettling, because all his preconceptions about her were starting to look wrong. ‘Sleep well,’ he said, and went to settle down with his new reading material.
