Читать книгу His Secret Baby: The Agent's Secret Baby - Carla Cassidy, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 15

It looked as if a tornado had made a pit stop in her kitchen, leaving pots, measuring spoons and cups, and ingredients—both large and small—scattered every which way.

At the moment, Eve felt just a shade away from overwhelmed. She scanned the formerly neat kitchen and sighed. The clock on the wall to her immediate right kept insisting on swallowing up minutes. She was running out of time and falling drastically behind.

Though she hated to admit it, Eve realized she’d bitten off a little more than she could chew. Okay, a lot more. She was seriously regretting having turned down Adam’s offer. He’d volunteered to bring a fully cooked turkey dinner, prepared by a local caterer, to the table for her. At the time, she’d turned him down, confident that she could pull it off the way she had before.

Thanks to Adam’s help every evening, she’d been getting more sleep and grew stronger. So much so that she thought, since it was nearly a month since she’d given birth to Brooklyn, she finally was back to her old self.

But standing here, in the middle of her chaotic kitchen, with the stuffing only half-baked and demanding her attention, the potatoes refusing for some unknown reason to cook to the point where they were soft enough to mash, and the turkey needing basting every fifteen minutes, not to mention that she had to stop periodically to feed or change an overly fussy baby, her goal of having everything ready by five o’clock was becoming the impossible dream.

Sound suddenly emanated from the baby monitor on the counter. Brooklyn was awake and crying. Again.

Eve pressed her lips together, trying to ignore the sound.

Brooklyn’s wail grew louder.

Her daughter had gotten accustomed to being scooped up within moments of voicing her displeasure. Eve knew schools of child-rearing sometimes frowned on that, claiming that to deny instant gratification was actually good for the baby. But the sound of her baby’s cries just twisted her heart. Besides, she reasoned, how could too much love be a bad thing?

Still, today would have been a good day to put one of those “let the baby cry a little” theories to the test. Eve tried and remained where she was.

She lasted all of a minute and a half. Throwing up her hands, she wiped them on her apron then hurried to the staircase.

“Mama’s coming,” she called out, taking the stairs as quickly as she could.

The pitiful cries continued until she entered Brooklyn’s room.

“Maybe you’d like to come down and give me a few pointers,” she said to her daughter as she picked the infant up.

Brooklyn sighed deeply, as if some horrible wrong had just been righted, then lay her head down on her mother’s shoulder, tucking herself against her mother’s neck.

The missing piece of my puzzle, Eve thought, patting the baby’s bottom. She could almost feel the deep affection in her chest doubling the moment Brooklyn lay her head down.

Remaining where she was for a moment, Eve drew in a deep breath. No offensive odor registered. “Okay, you don’t need changing and you just ate an hour ago, so you’re not hungry. You’re just lonely up here, aren’t you?” she murmured, stroking her daughter’s back. It was a toss up who was more soothed by the action, Eve mused, Brooklyn or her. “Okay, come with me,” she said cheerfully, leaving the room and heading for the stairs. “I know just where to put you.”

On his last visit—yesterday—Josiah had brought yet another gift for the baby. It was what amounted to a motorized port-a-crib, complete with music some expert declared that babies enjoyed. He’d had Lucas put it together for her. The finished product currently stood in the family room.

“Time to put this little contraption to the test,” Eve announced. Very carefully, she deposited Brooklyn into the port-a-crib.

The moment her back made contact with the thin mattress on the bottom of the crib, Brooklyn began to fuss again. Eve quickly wound the motor. The port-a-crib slowly swayed to and fro, the gentle action keeping time with the soft strains of a lullaby.

Brooklyn’s eyes widened. Entranced, she stopped crying. Her expression became alert, as if trying to pinpoint where the sound came from.

If she didn’t know better, Eve thought, she would have said her daughter was smiling.

“Bless you, Josiah,” Eve murmured. With slow, careful movements, she repositioned the port-a-crib so that she could easily keep an eye on it from the kitchen.

Eve had no sooner done that than a loud hissing noise demanded her attention. The water in the pot with the potatoes had finally begun to boil, and just like that, it was boiling over. The water splashed onto the surface of the electric burner and cascaded down along the front of the stove.

The last time that had happened, Eve suddenly remembered, the stove had short-circuited, throwing the oven portion out of commission for an entire day. She didn’t have an entire day to spare. She didn’t even have half an hour to spare, she thought, trying to bank down a wave of panic.

“No, no, no,” Eve cried, as if the urgent entreaty could somehow perform a miracle and send the water retreating like the Red Sea scene in the classic The Ten Commandments.

Grabbing a towel, Eve frantically stemmed the descending tide. In the background, she heard the doorbell ring.

Now what?

It was too early for either Adam or Josiah and his driver to arrive. People didn’t sell magazines door-to-door around here on Thanksgiving, did they?

She decided to ignore whoever was on the other side of the door. But the doorbell rang a second time. And Tessa, suddenly alert, began to run back and forth from the front door to the kitchen.

Now someone was knocking instead of ringing. She glanced at her dog as she made a second round-trip dash. “What is it, Lassie? Did Timmy fall into the well?”

Tessa barked, as if in response to the question.

Feeling harried, Eve looked over toward Brooklyn to make sure everything was all right, then hurried over to the front door.

She pulled it open without bothering to ask who it was. If it was a serial killer, the dog would protect her. Or so she hoped.

It wasn’t a serial killer. It was Adam. Early.

“Didn’t I give you a key?” she asked him, an irritated note threatening her voice. Her dog, apparently, was overjoyed at the early appearance and behaved as if she hadn’t seen him for months instead of a handful of hours.

Turning on her heel, Eve quickly returned to the scene of her pending disaster.

The scent of scorched surfaces and burned water faintly teased his nose as Adam followed her to the kitchen. Things weren’t going too well, he noticed, but wisely kept the observation to himself.

“Yes, but that’s only for emergencies, like if I think you’ve passed out and hit your head on something. Otherwise, I didn’t think you would want me just waltzing in.”

Thinking back, she realized that she had let him in each time. “You practically live here these days.” The only time he left was to go to work or get a change of clothes. That pretty much constituted him living with her. “Having you let yourself in wouldn’t have upset some delicate balance of power,” she assured him.

Pausing to pet the dog, Adam then went directly to the port-a-crib. Brooklyn began gurgling and kicking her feet. Her big blue eyes appeared focused on Adam.

Hardly a month old and she was already a flirt, Eve thought with a shake of her head.

“Hi, short stuff,” Adam teased, tickling the baby’s belly.

The sound of Brooklyn’s delighted laughter filled the air, warming Eve’s heart.

Walking away from the crib, Adam crossed back to the kitchen. His eyes swept around the room. Keeping a straight face, he asked Eve, “Need help?”

“No.” The word came out like a warning shot fired at a potential intruder. “I’ve got everything under control here.”

Rather than dispute her claim, Adam slid onto the closest stool. Propping his upturned palm beneath his chin, he just stared unabashedly at her.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Waiting for your nose to grow,” he replied simply. “Happened in a fairy tale. Little wooden boy lied, his nose grew something awful.”

She held up her hand to stop him from going on. “I am aware of the fairy tale,” she informed him through gritted teeth, “and I am not lying.”

He gave her a knowing look, pretending to humor her. “Lucky for you, fairy tales don’t come true.” He slid off the stool and looked around. Enough was enough. It was time to get down to business. “All right, where do you want me to get started?”

She gave up the protest with a heartfelt sigh. “Do you have a magic wand?”

He laughed. “I don’t think you need that much help. Just a little,” he added, trying to bolster her morale. “Why don’t we divide up the work? Would that make things easier on you?”

“I used to be able to handle everything,” she told him with an air of helplessness.

The water in the pot finally simmered down, sinking to its new level. A lot of water had gone over the side. Wanting to replenish what was lost, she grabbed the pot by its handles in order to refill it and immediately yelped, releasing the pot again. Why she’d suddenly forgotten that there was no coating on the pot handles was completely beyond her.

Grabbing her hands in his, Adam quickly moved her toward the sink. He turned the faucet on and ran cold water over her palms.

What was wrong with her? She knew to do that, to instantly apply cold to the affected area in order to minimize the damage. Had giving birth completely diminished her brain power?

“And you’ll be able to handle everything again—soon,” Adam promised her, still holding her hands beneath the running water. “But for now, there’s nothing wrong with accepting a little help when you’re not firing on all four cylinders,” he added mildly. Releasing her hands, he reached for a towel and offered it to her. “Why don’t I take over the mashed potatoes—I am assuming they’re going to be mashed.” He looked at her, waiting for confirmation.

She bit back a wince as she wiped the towel over her tender fingers. “Yes, they’re going to be mashed.”

He regarded the potatoes for a moment, then raised his eyes to meet hers. “You make them with garlic, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses and milk?”

“That was the plan, more or less.” She wouldn’t have thought of adding the cheeses, but that did sound good.

“Great.” He reached for the whisk she kept housed in a colorful jar on the counter, along with several other utensils. “I can take out all my aggression on the potatoes.”

Opening the refrigerator to take out the one dessert she’d prepared last night, Eve stopped to give him a puzzled look. “What aggression?”

“Just a little joke,” Adam assured her as he moved over to the sink and, using pot holders, drained the potatoes. A cloud of steam rose, but he deftly avoided coming in contact with it, drawing back his head. “Apparently very little,” he commented more to himself than to her.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve thrown me off by coming now. I didn’t expect you until later,” she told him, then turned her attention to the stuffing she’d placed in the oven earlier.

Opening the top oven, she raised the aluminum foil away from the rectangular pan, wanting to reassure herself that nothing was burning. This represented three-quarters of the stuffing. The remaining quarter was inside the turkey, absorbing the bird’s juices for added flavor. She would make sure that Adam sampled it. She wasn’t quite sure why she was so set on showing him she was a good cook, but in the last few minutes, it had become very important to her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to throw you off,” he apologized. “But the store’s closed today and I had nothing to do. I don’t like having a lot of time on my hands.”

That much was true. There’d been a quick touching of bases with not only his handler—who was on his way to spend the holiday with his sister and her family—but with Sederholm, as well. He’d gone to see Sederholm to find out firsthand how things were coming along with the replacement shipment. He’d had to listen to the cocky college senior delineate his getaway plan, the one he intended to use on his parents by skipping out on the evening meal. Sederholm had sounded more than a little paranoid as he assured him that everything was on schedule and that he’d have his supply “soon.”

Once he’d gotten all that out of the way, Adam caught himself thinking about Eve. Constantly. That very fact should have thrown up all sorts of red flags for him. He should be trying to stay away from her. It just wasn’t working out for him. Being away from Eve only made him want to see her more. The trite saying was right. Absence, even absence involving a mere matter of hours, made the heart grow fonder.

Adam sighed. He was becoming entrenched in this “helpful lover” role he’d taken on. So much so that it was taking center stage with him. He knew the danger. It made him let his guard down, interfered with his focus. Which in turn endangered not just him and the people he worked with, but Eve and Brooklyn, as well.

He couldn’t allow anything to happen to them.

Maybe they’d all be better off if he just walked away.

Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. What was the right call? He honestly wasn’t sure.

Tomorrow. He’d think about that and make up his mind tomorrow. Today, there were different priorities to consider.

“So I thought I’d come over and see if I could lend you a hand or at least some support,” he continued. “My mother used to say that I was pretty handy in the kitchen.”

“Your mother?” she echoed. He didn’t strike her as the type to talk about his mother. She didn’t think of him as warm and fuzzy.

“You sound surprised.” Adam grinned, amused. “Even I had parents.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that I thought you didn’t, but you don’t exactly talk about your family.”

Adam forced his voice to sound light, as if the subject and what had happened hadn’t been carved into his heart.

“There’s a reason for that.”

Was it her imagination, or was he working that whisk particularly hard? He really was taking out his feelings on the potatoes. “And that is?”

“I don’t have a family,” he told her simply. “Not anymore.”

He’d told her that his sister was dead, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about his parents. She felt instant empathy in her soul. “Your parents are dead?”

“Yes.”

The single word was completely devoid of any feeling, any telltale indications of the boy who had once been cut to the quick at the sudden deprivation. He hadn’t had time to grieve. He had a sister to take care of and a life to carve out for both of them.

Eve turned away from the oven and toward him. “I guess that gives us something in common. I’m an orphan, too.”

It felt odd to phrase it that way, because, after all, she was an adult and had felt like one for a very long time now. But the realization that there was no one to fuss over her, to wonder trivial things such as was she eating right and keeping warm, that occasionally made her feel detached from the world at large.

Adam looked into her eyes. It felt as if he delved into her very soul. “I know exactly what you mean,” he affirmed softly.

Eve shifted restlessly. She felt herself reacting, not just to the words, but to him. To his very male presence within this, her female-dominated home. It seemed incredible that he still had that effect on her. Knowing what she knew about him, feeling as if he’d betrayed her, at least that initial time, she was still incredibly and irresistibly drawn to him.

She wanted to be with him. And not just with a table between them, but biblically, in the full sense of the word.

Out of the blue she remembered that she’d gone to see her doctor yesterday for her postpartum checkup. After it was over, Dr. Mudd had expressed surprise at how quickly she’d healed and how fast her body seemed to have bounced back to its prepregnancy form.

When Dr. Mudd had told her that she was “good to go” in all aspects of the concept and could even begin contemplating giving Brooklyn a little brother or sister, Eve had felt herself going pale. Very politely, she’d informed her doctor that she had no intentions of going that route for a very long time to come. Maybe never.

Dr. Mudd had merely given her a knowing look and said the choice, as always, was up to her, but that she’d felt she had to tell her that she could have “relations” if she wanted to.

As if she wanted to, Eve had silently scoffed at the time.

But the problem was that whenever Adam was around, she found herself wanting to.

A lot.

Why was she thinking about this? Heaven knew she had more than enough to deal with right now and Vera was dying to have her finally return to the practice. She made plans to that end, thinking that she would get started next Monday. Between the baby and her career, she had more than enough in her life to keep her occupied. She certainly didn’t need to complicate things even further by inviting a man into her life.

Into their lives, she amended. Because what affected her affected Brooklyn. They were a set now. The fact that the man she was contemplating—fleetingly—to allow into her life was Brooklyn’s father didn’t change anything. Hell, he was the reason she was feeling this edginess in the first place.

At bottom, despite the fact that he did pitch in on all levels to help her cope with the changes in her life, and more specifically, to help her take care of the baby, she still couldn’t bring herself to fully trust him or be able to take him at his word.

No matter how much she wanted to.