Читать книгу The Non-Commissioned Baby - Maureen Child - Страница 9

Two

Jeff turned around slowly to face her.

All he really wanted was a shower, a nap and a change of clothes. Marine Corps boot camp hadn’t been as rough on him as that one small baby girl had been. And yet, he thought as he looked into a pair of suddenly remote brown eyes, he had a feeling that his troubles were just beginning.

“Your rules?” he asked, determined to keep the upper hand in whatever argument was beginning to erupt. “Since when do employees make the rules?”

“Since now,” she declared firmly.

Jeff rubbed the back of his neck. He should have known it wouldn’t be easy. Any friend of his sister’s was bound to be stubborn and independent as hell. He stared into those soft brown eyes of hers again and felt a stirring deep within him. Despite the fact that she was dressed like a refugee from the Goodwill, Jeff found himself wondering what her legs looked like when they weren’t being hidden by seemingly miles of denim fabric.

Why would she dress like such a frump? What was she hiding from?

And why did he care?

He didn’t, Jeff told himself. He couldn’t afford to feel the sense of awareness already creeping through him. Laura Morgan was going to be living in his house, taking care of that baby. He wasn’t about to mess that up by allowing his hormones to do his thinking for him.

Still, he told himself, he must be lonelier than he had thought, to be intrigued by a tiny woman dressed in clothes two sizes too big for her.

The look in her eyes as he continued to stare at her only grew frostier. So much for her sweatshirt, he smirked inwardly. He’d be willing to bet that she hadn’t found anything “grand” about life in years.

But, since the baby was cooing contentedly, he was willing to put up with the poor man’s Mary Poppins. As for his hormones—apparently, he needed to spend some time with one or two lady friends. That should take care of any bizarre interest in Laura Morgan.

“Okay,” he said at last, folding his arms across his chest and completely ignoring the sticky substances on his T-shirt. “What are these rules?”

She nodded. “I’ll stay here and take care of the baby for the summer, but...”

“Yeah?”

She inhaled sharply and tried to draw herself up to a formidable height. He could have told her it was a futile attempt. She couldn’t be more than five foot one. And that was no one’s idea of intimidating.

“You’re not hiring me to be your housekeeper.” She paused for a look around at the mess his apartment had become. “Or,” she added, “your cook and laundress.”

Insulted, Jeff tried to defend himself. “Look, until this morning, everything was under control—”

“Also,” she said, cutting him off neatly, “there will be no walking around naked, no women strolling in and out of the apartment—”

“What are you—?”

“One of your neighbors thought it prudent to warn me about the fact that you’re what she calls a ‘ladies’ man.’”

He shook his head and gave a resigned sigh. “Let me guess. White hair, big blue eyes?”

She nodded, but he thought he saw the ghost of a smile twitching at her lips.

“Agnes Butler,” he said, the elderly woman’s features forming in his mind. “For lack of anything better to do, she spies on me.”

Twin brown eyebrows arched high on her forehead. “Spying? Sounds a little paranoid.”

Briefly, he recalled all the times he had strolled down that short hallway and spotted his neighbor, her eye glued to a partially opened door. Yeah, spying was the right word.

“You’re not paranoid,” he told her, “if they really are after you.”

A moment or two of silence passed. At last, she nodded and said, “Yes, well, the rest of the rules are pretty simple.”

“There’s more?” he asked.

She smiled. “No foul language—”

“Now, just a minute—” he said, trying to interrupt, but she was on a roll.

“No talking before coffee in the morning, and no loud TV or radio after eleven at night.”

Jeff stared at her. Was she finished? Or just pausing for breath? A few seconds ticked by, and he told himself that apparently, she’d reached the end of her demands. Well, fine. Now it was his turn.

He would tell her just what she could do with her rules. This was his house after all. Where did she get off telling him when he could or couldn’t watch his TV? And what about women? So he didn’t exactly have a parade of females trooping in and out of his apartment every day and night. If he wanted to, he wasn’t going to be stopped by her.

“Listen up, lady,” he started, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are...”

She froze, stiffening for a fight.

Miranda sniffled, shifting against a suddenly tense body.

Recognizing the signs of baby distress already, Jeff lowered his voice and spoke in a quiet, reasonable tone. “You can’t order me around. I’m the employer here, you know.”

“I can tell you what I expect,” Laura countered, her voice matching his. “And if you don’t like it, you can find someone else.”

He didn’t believe the threat. Even as she said it, her arms were tightening around the baby as if afraid that he would try to take Miranda from her forcibly.

No worries there.

But with the position he was in, he couldn’t afford to take the risk. If she left, he’d be right back where he started that morning. In deep trouble, begging Peggy for help.

All right, he could swallow a little bit of pride for the sake of his sanity. And he could even learn to deal with her ridiculous rules. Anything to keep her here and the baby quiet. After all, it wasn’t forever. Just for the summer. By the end of three months, he would either have found a suitable replacement guardian for the baby or, God help him, a permanent nanny to help him raise Hank Powell’s kid.

Abruptly, he said, “Fine. Agreed.”

“Thank you.” She accepted his defeat gracefully. “But as long as we’re discussing this situation, I should like to add one more rule to my list.”

He snorted disbelievingly. “What’s left?”

“I’d like to state clearly right from the first,” she said, “that I am not interested in you romantically, so I would appreciate it very much if you would keep your distance.”

Jeff laughed, the first good laugh he’d had all morning. Pointedly running his gaze over her slowly, he shook his head and said, “No problem.”

Once Jeff was out of the shower—and Laura had even resorted to turning on the TV so she wouldn’t have to listen to the spray of water and imagine it pummeling his naked, no doubt gorgeous body—they set things to rights.

The living room was a disaster.

With a fed and changed Miranda watching happily from her wicker basket, Laura and Jeff worked together to rebuild the place. So much for her rule about not being a housekeeper. As most of the clutter was cleared away, she noticed that the apartment wasn’t exactly homey. In fact, it was surprisingly impersonal.

A sprinkling of framed photos and commendations hung on the beige walls, but there were no paintings. Tweed fabric covered the couch and two chairs that sat on the tan wall-to-wall carpeting. There was an impressive stereo system and a large-screen TV on one wall, and a fireplace that looked as though it had never been used stood on the opposite wall. A two-person table sat at the end of the kitchen, and there were two bedrooms, one on either side of the single bathroom.

She tried not to think about having to share that bathroom with Jeff Ryan for the next three months. Luckily for her, she no longer noticed things like just how good-looking Jeff Ryan was. If she had been the slightest bit interested in finding a man, these next few months could have been torture.

Of course, she had thought she was past noticing the fresh, clean scent of a man’s aftershave, too.

“So,” he said, and snapped her attention to him. He folded up yet another brown paper grocery bag as he asked, “How come a kindergarten teacher didn’t already have a summer job nailed down?”

She stacked the last can of formula in what had been an empty cabinet, then closed the door and straightened up. “I did,” she admitted. “This one sounded like more fun.”

He snorted a laugh. “More fun than what?”

“Transferring card catalogs to computer in the local library.”

He whistled low and long. “You’re right, not fun.” He glanced at the baby a few feet away. “But this is?”

“Sure.”

“Lady, you’ve got a strange sense of fun.”

Peggy had told Laura that Jeff not only had no experience taking care of children, but also that he didn’t even like them.

She frowned at him. “Your sister has three kids. Don’t you remember how cute they were when they were little?”

He shrugged and bent down to neatly place the folded bags in the appropriate rack just inside the pantry door. “I remember they cried. A lot,” he said as he stood up again and closed the door. “They smelled bad and they couldn’t even talk to tell you why they cried all the time.”

“No wonder you never visit Peggy and her family.”

He looked at her. “Is that what she said?”

Was he offended? How could he be? “It’s true, isn’t it? You see them about once a year?”

“Yeah, it’s true.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned one hip against the blond wood countertop. “She tell you why?”

“She said you’re uncomfortable around kids.” Laura didn’t tell him the rest. Did he really need to know that his own sister, though she loved him, thought he was too self-involved to be concerned about family?

“That’s part of it,” he admitted, letting his gaze slide from Laura to the baby, now chewing contentedly on her own fist. “But mostly it’s because I can’t even talk to Peggy and her husband anymore.”

“Why not?” Laura asked. Peggy and Jim Cummings were two of the nicest people she’d ever known. Was the woman’s own brother too dense to see that?

He shook his head and smiled without humor. “Before they had those kids, Peggy and Jim and I had some good times. Skiing, sailing, took a few trips together.”

“And?” she prodded, interested now.

“And, the minute the first kid was born, it was all over.” He pushed away from the counter, walked across the utilitarian kitchen and stood, staring down at the baby in the basket. “They became parents in the worst possible sense. All they talked about was Thomas. His teeth. His upset stomach. His first steps. The first time he used a spoon by himself, you would have thought he was Einstein reincarnated.”

Laura smiled to herself as she stared at Jeff’s broad back. His sister was still like that Just a few weeks ago, Peggy had called to crow over Tina winning the second-grade spelling bee.

Like any other good parent would.

“But that’s perfectly natural,” Laura said, and walked to stand beside him. Looking down at Miranda, she smiled. “They’re proud of their children.”

“They’re boring,” he countered, swiveling his head to stare at her. “They used to have plans. Ambitions. Now those ambitions are all for the kids.”

An emotion she couldn’t quite identify flickered in his pale blue eyes briefly, then disappeared. “All parents want good things for their kids,” she said quietly.

“Sure,” he countered. “But do they have to stop being people themselves to be good parents?”

“Peggy and Jim are terrific people,” she argued, defending her friends.

He shook his head as he looked at her. Once again, Laura felt a flutter of awareness dance through her bloodstream. Deliberately, she squashed it.

“Is it so wrong to have ambitions and dreams for your kids?” she asked, determined to keep this conversation going, if only to keep her mind too busy to daydream.

He thought about her question for a long minute, then shrugged. “Not for Peggy and Jim,” he said, shifting his gaze back to the baby, now intently staring up at the two adults. “But that’s not me,” he continued. “I have plans for my career. Plans I’ve worked toward long and hard.”

“Everybody makes plans,” she said.

It was as if he hadn’t heard her.

“I’m going to be the youngest general in the corps,” he stated. Then he glanced at the wicker basket. “And I’m not going to let anything stop me.”