Читать книгу Baby Wishes And Bachelor Kisses - Valerie Parv, Valerie Parv - Страница 10

Chapter One

The unexpected sound of a baby screaming stopped Bethany Dale in her tracks outside the substantial colonial farmhouse that belonged to Nicholas Frakes. As far as she knew Nicholas Frakes was a bachelor. According to an old article she’d clipped from a magazine and kept, Nicholas was involved in a torrid affair with a fashion model, but there was no mention of a child. Yet the sounds coming from inside the house were unmistakable.

The front door stood open, shielded by a handsome, period-style, security screen door, and the baby’s cries reached her clearly on the wide verandah that shaded the house on three sides. Bethany’s reaction was instant and fierce. Waves of primitive need clawed at her, bringing a huge lump to her throat so she could hardly breathe.

Why did Nicholas Frakes have to be entertaining visitors with a baby on the day he had agreed to see Bethany? It didn’t seem fair. Now she would have to conduct her interview while striving to ignore the ache she could already feel starting deep inside her.

Her eyes began to mist, and she blinked furiously. She had to get hold of herself before she rang the doorbell to announce her arrival. The world was full of babies. Just because she was unable to have any of her own was no reason to go to pieces every time she heard one crying.

Even aversion therapy hadn’t helped. After discovering the truth, she had deliberately volunteered to work in the newborn room at the children’s shelter in Melbourne where she worked part-time. But instead of putting her off babies, being around them had only deepened her sense of loss.

As a distraction, she had decided to throw herself into the journal she edited for people who shared her enthusiasm for dollhouses and miniatures, although the name of her publication was ironic. She had called it The Baby House, the name historically used to describe dollhouses before they had become children’s toys. Of course, she had named it before finding out that she couldn’t have children. But it was uncanny how she seemed destined to be surrounded by reminders of her barren state.

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. She was not—repeat not—going to let this beat her. Surely her parents’ example was all the proof she needed that other forms of parenting could be equally gratifying? The Dale family included three foster siblings as well as Bethany, her older brother, Sam, and little sister, Joanie, and all six of them loved and fought and loved again with all the passion of blood brothers and sisters.

She could handle one unexpected baby, she told herself resolutely, especially if it meant persuading Nicholas Frakes to let her interview him about the Frakes Baby House for her journal. That was, once he got over being furious with her for concealing the real reason she was here. She hadn’t lied exactly, except by omission. But she had used her business letterhead and suggested that the article would concern family history in this area. In a way, it did, she told herself to silence the nagging voice of her conscience. She hadn’t said it wasn’t about the dollhouse so she couldn’t be responsible for whatever conclusions Nicholas Frakes chose to draw.

She wished she’d had more time to research his background more thoroughly but his faxed agreement, scribbled on the bottom of her letter, had come out of the blue two days before. She had been working at the children’s shelter until late on both days, leaving her no time to do anything but write out a few questions she would like him to answer.

She was sure he would have refused to see her if she had mentioned the real purpose of her visit. It was Nicholas himself who had withdrawn his family’s famous dollhouse from public display soon after inheriting the Frakes estate on his father’s death. Why, nobody seemed to know, but he had resisted all overtures from the media to gain access to it. It would be a real coup if Bethany could secure the interview and photograph the house as it was today.

Her breath escaped in a rush. Without the boost to circulation provided by this story, her journal wouldn’t survive for another issue. She could have struggled on, funding it herself, if the printer hadn’t gone bankrupt while holding a substantial amount of her capital and leaving her in debt. But she couldn’t let herself dwell on what was riding on this interview or she would lose her nerve altogether. And there would be no story unless she gained the cooperation of the formidable Nicholas Frakes.

Squaring her shoulders and drawing herself up to her full five foot seven, including her heeled shoes, she pressed the doorbell, hearing it ring distantly inside the house. At the same moment, the baby began to scream again louder than ever, and Bethany’s heart turned over. The child sounded so desolate. Why didn’t somebody do something to comfort it? In spite of her resolve to remain unmoved, her arms ached to hold the child and rock away those pathetic cries.

After the third ring, when no one came to the door, Bethany decided the occupants couldn’t possibly hear her above the sound of the crying baby, so she set off around the verandah in search of another entrance where she could make her presence known.

The house was a delightful blend of traditional and modern styles, the rough-sawn timber cladding blending charmingly with bay windows, a steeply pitched corrugated roof and stained-glass panels set into French doors that could be opened onto the verandah to let in cooling breezes. One set stood open, and frothy curtains billowed outward as Bethany moved cautiously toward them.

“Hello. Is anyone home?” she called tentatively.

There was no response so she stepped over the threshold, finding herself in what was obviously a man’s bedroom. A not very tidy man, she observed, wrinkling her nose involuntarily. The massive mahogany bed looked as if it hadn’t been made for days, with black silk sheets and continental quilt dragging onto the floor as if the occupant had hurled himself out in a hurry.

The black silk made her smile. Definitely a bachelor. No woman in her right mind would choose such difficult-to-launder materials. Clothes were strewn everywhere, and Bethany felt her color heighten as she noticed the underwear draped over one corner of a cheval mirror. Evidently Nicholas Frakes’s taste ran to skimpy briefs of almost transparent silk.

The sight of herself in the same mirror brought her up short. Her moss green linen pantsuit looked so businesslike for this setting. A black chiffon negligee would be more appropriate. No, not black—too strong for her creamy complexion, she decided. Coral was more becoming. And her honey-colored hair should be released from its clasp at her nape to flow around her shoulders in untamed curls, although the comma curl on her forehead could stay. It added a touch of coquettishness to her teal blue eyes and with luck, provided a distraction from the scattering of freckles on her fair skin. Then she would be ready for such a hedonistic setting as this room.

In horror she realized where her thoughts were heading. She had no right to be here, far less to be taking such a prurient interest in Nicholas Frakes’s bedroom, if this was even his room. Averting her eyes from the chaos, she hurriedly crossed the room and stepped out into a wide vaulted hallway.

The crying sounds grew louder as she headed toward them. She skidded to a halt at what was apparently the door to the kitchen. It was a huge room with a massive stone fireplace and a vaulted, steeply pitched ceiling. In the center was a scarred oak table, and seated at it in a high chair was the unhappy little girl making all the noise. Beside her was an equally unhappy man trying unsuccessfully to spoon food into her mouth.

Bethany stared in amazement at the tableau. She had seen a photograph of Nicholas Frakes’s head and shoulders, but it hadn’t prepared her for the height and breadth of the man. A fraction over six feet tall, he stooped awkwardly over the high chair. A pair of stonewashed moleskin pants rode low on narrow hips, the seams strained to their limits as he braced his long legs wide apart. She had a momentary vision of trying to keep pace with the stride those legs would take, and she felt out of breath just thinking about it.

He wore no shirt, and his bronzed torso gleamed in the sunshine spilling through an open window, the sight putting further restraints on her breathing until she noticed the telltale green streaking the sculpted perfection of his chest. He might have the build of an athlete but he was human after all. If that wasn’t spinach he was wearing, then she’d eat the baby food herself.

The discovery gave her the courage to say loudly, “Nicholas Frakes?”

The man snapped upright as if shot. “Good Lord, where did you spring from?”

She held out her hand. “I’m Bethany Dale. We had an appointment, remember? You didn’t hear the bell so I came in the back way.”

“The back way is locked,” he said pointedly.

There was no escaping the confession, although she blushed at being forced into the admission. “The French doors into your bedroom were open. I came in that way. I’m sorry if I’m intruding.”

He thrust a hand through his hair which was the blue-black color of gunmetal and cropped close to his head in almost a military style. The texture was intriguing. Would it feel soft or bristly if she brushed her fingers against it?

She was doing it again, she realized with a start. What was it about Nicholas Frakes that inspired these almost voyeuristic tendencies in her? First the underwear. Now she was wondering how it would feel to brush her fingers through his hair. And she had barely set eyes on the man.

“You’re here now so the question is academic. We’re almost finished. Milady is finished,” he added with a tired jerk of his head toward the baby who was banging a plastic cup angrily against the tray of her high chair. “I suppose she’ll eat if she gets really hungry.”

Bethany glanced curiously around, putting two and two together. “You’re here on your own with—”

“Maree,” he supplied. “Yes, it’s just me and my loud friend.”

Loud was right. Bethany could hardly hear herself think over the baby’s racket. She certainly couldn’t conduct an interview under these conditions, even if Nicholas agreed to cooperate. For all their sakes, and especially for the sake of the little girl whose cries threatened to melt Bethany’s remaining reserves, there was only one thing to do.

“Would you like some help?”

He looked so thankful as he nodded and held out the tiny spoon, that her heart was further caught in a viselike squeeze. She could see how tired he was. His bronzed skin had a pale undercast as if sleep was a distant memory, and there were violet smudges beneath both his eyes which were a compelling pewter color.

When she accepted the spoon he smiled and the fatigue cleared briefly, like a glimpse of the sun coming out on a cloudy day. The temptation to bask in the warmth of his smile was almost irresistible, and she felt her own mouth tilt upward in response. “If you can convince her to eat, I’ll be forever in your debt.”

She knew she wouldn’t hold him to the promise, however tempting it was to turn the situation to her own advantage. Whatever cooperation she gained, he would have to give freely if she was to live with herself afterward. So she shook her head. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. No obligation.”

The intensity of his gaze on her was a further distraction as she dipped the spoon into the depleted bowl of pureed spinach and offered the handle of the spoon to the baby. As Bethany had hoped, Maree was so surprised by the gesture that she froze in midhowl, turning her tear-streaked face to Nicholas in confusion.

Then, hesitantly, she reached for the spoon and grasped it between chubby thumb and forefinger. Most of the spinach slid off the spoon onto the tray, and Maree watched it fall with an expression of fascination. “Ah, ah, ah,” she said, then tipped the spoon so the rest of the contents joined the little pile.

Bethany pushed the bowl toward the baby. “That’s it, you do it. You’re a big girl, aren’t you?”

She guided the hand gripping the spoon toward the food, managing to scoop some up, then helped Maree steer it toward her mouth. Nicholas’s gasp of astonishment was audible between them as some of the food made it into the baby’s mouth. Then with a chuckle she upended the spoon and added the rest to the pile on the tray.

“Well I’ll be darned,” Nicholas said in awe. “Was that what she was trying to tell me, that she wanted to feed herself?”

Bethany helped Maree to load the spoon again. “Uh-huh.” She glanced at him. “She’s what—nine or ten months old?”

Her sideways look caught his nod of agreement. “Ten months.”

Bethany smiled. “At that age very few babies will let you feed them. They want to do it all themselves. The best solution is to give them a few soft bites of food at a time and stay out of it. They’ve finally worked out what their fingers are for, and they can’t wait to use them at every opportunity.”

He smiled back, and the tiredness lifted from his face, which positively glowed with the light of this new information. It came to her that Nicholas was a man who enjoyed learning things and wasn’t too proud to let a woman teach him, provided he was sure she knew what she was talking about. The insight startled her for an instant as she became aware of a temporary bond stretching between them, forged by their concern for this adorable baby. Bethany would give a lot not to have to break that bond by revealing the real reason for her visit.

Knowing it was foolish, she couldn’t bring herself to do it, at least not for the moment. She told herself it was for the baby’s sake, but it wasn’t the whole truth. She enjoyed the way Nicholas was looking at her, as if she was some kind of miracle worker. After her recent experience with her fiancé, Alexander Kouros, who had dumped her as soon as he discovered she couldn’t have his children, it felt good to have a man look at her as if she was special and wonderful. It would change as soon as Nicholas knew why she was here, but for now it felt uncommonly good.

“You have a knack for this,” he told her, his rich baritone voice admiring. “It never occurred to me that her howls were a declaration of independence.”

“It wouldn’t unless you know what to expect,” she assured him. Working at the children’s shelter, as well as helping to bring up her foster brothers and sisters, she’d had more than the usual amount of practice for her age. It made the knowledge that she could never use her experience to mother her own child all the more painful.

As she felt her eyes start to swim, she blinked furiously. She had promised herself she wasn’t going to let this beat her. “There’s something else we can try. Do you have any ripe bananas?”

He looked startled but moved toward the refrigerator where a well-filled fruit bowl was perched as if it had been shoved there out of harm’s way. “Will this do?”

Bethany accepted the golden fruit, feeing it yield to her exploratory squeeze. “Perfect.” She peeled half the fruit, broke off two small chunks and placed them in Maree’s plastic bowl. “Here you go, kitten. Try these for size.”

With another gurgling “ah, ah, ah” sound, the baby pincered one of the chunks and dropped it onto the pile of cold spinach. Bethany’s flickering glance caught Nicholas’s pained wince, but he wisely said nothing. Moments later Maree rescued the banana and poked it into her mouth, gnawing on it contentedly.

Bethany levered herself up from her kneeling position beside the high chair. “The best thing we can do is leave her to eat the banana by herself. Or not as she chooses.”

“She won’t choke or anything?”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to leave the room. Just get on with a few chores and keep your eye on her progress, but let her make most of the running. As soon as she starts playing with the food, lift her down and wait until the next mealtime. It helps not to let her graze between meals. That way she’ll be hungry for what’s on the menu next time around.”

“You are truly amazing. Are you sure you’re real and not some kind of fairy godmother?” he asked, an appreciative light dancing in his pewter gaze. It made the years peel away so she got a momentary glimpse of the boy he must have been—handsome, devilish and irresistibly attractive. All the qualities were still there, but packaged in a body that was so undeniably male that she felt a surge of involuntary response.

What would it be like to be on the receiving end of a personal compliment from this man, she found herself wondering. She had a feeling he wouldn’t bestow them idly, but neither would he withhold them if he thought they were genuinely deserved. The thought brought a flush of color to her cheeks, and she turned to watch Maree so he wouldn’t see his effect on her.

Her reaction was as inappropriate as it was unexpected, and she tried to tell herself it was probably no more than a rebound thing. She had been hurt by Alexander. In his gratitude, Nicholas was being charming to her. He was also the most attractive man she’d met in a long time. It wasn’t hard to see why the combination should so disturb her.

If she let it. She decided to keep the conversation on neutral ground. “All babies go through this stage. They’re learning how to use their bodies and control their world, which starts with trying to control their parents. I’m sure Maree’s crying has dragged her mother out in the middle of the night plenty of times lately. It’s a kind of test to see if the baby can make her mother respond.”

There was a long silence punctuated only by the sound of the baby playing with the banana. “I’m afraid Maree hasn’t had that luxury. Her mother and father were killed seven months ago. I’m the only relative she has left.”

Her gaze flew from the gurgling child to the man standing behind the high chair. He looked as if he was carved from stone but his eyes held a bleakness which tore at her. Her admiration of him soared, even as she felt her heart go out to him in his personal tragedy. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“You didn’t read the article in the local paper?”

She shook her head, and a frown of puzzlement etched his brow as if he had expected her to know and couldn’t understand why she didn’t. Was he mixing her up with another writer? The only way she could find out was by confessing her real purpose and now didn’t seem like the right time. “I’m afraid not. If you’d rather I went away and came back some other time.” She was gathering up her bag as she spoke.

His hand on her arm stayed her. “You don’t have to leave. It still hurts to think about, but I’ve had time to come to terms with what happened.”

The heat of his touch sent awareness flashing through her, as incandescent as a signal flare. Her eyes widened. Had Nicholas felt it, too? With an effort she met his eyes and made herself ask, “Was it an accident?”

He nodded. “There was a signal failure at a railway crossing not far from here. My brother and sister-in-law were driving across when an express train slammed into their car without any warning. Maree was the only survivor because she was strapped into a baby seat. Even then, given the state of the car, it was a miracle she survived. There wasn’t a scratch on her.”

This time when her eyes blurred she made no attempt to conceal it from him. “What a terrible tragedy.”

“It was, but all we can do is go on.”

“As you’re doing with your little niece?”

He nodded. “I’m all she has in the world, and I mean to give her the best upbringing I possibly can.”

The baby, her cheeks bulging with bananas, looked the picture of health and happiness as she bounced up and down in her high chair. Apart from the recent adornment of pureed spinach, she was spotlessly clean, dressed in a gorgeous romper suit decorated in teddy bears, with a pink ribbon adorning one of her baby curls.

She was in far better condition than her uncle, Bethany decided. Nicholas looked as if he had thrown his pants on in haste and forgotten—or never had time—to shave this morning. A bluish tinge darkened the strong line of his jaw, giving him a rugged, almost-piratical appearance which was more appealing than it had any right to be. The fatigue darkening his eyes only added to his masculine appeal, and to her horror, Bethany found herself wishing she could do something to help.

This would never do. She was here for one purpose and one only, to persuade him to let her write about the Frakes Baby House. But how could she come out and say so now, when he had just revealed the depths of a personal tragedy far greater than she had anticipated?

She couldn’t, she decided. Her hand closed resolutely around her bag. “I should go. The interview can wait until another time.”

“Dammit, you needn’t start feeling sorry for me,” he growled, startling her into freezing where she stood. “I’ve had enough of that from my neighbors around here. They act as if Maree and I have a contagious disease called tragedy. When you walked in knowing nothing about out situation, you treated us just like anybody else and it was like a breath of fresh air. At least stay and have a cup of coffee with me. You said yourself the best thing to do is keep busy in the kitchen while Maree feeds herself.”

Bethany gave a wan smile. “All right, one cup of coffee. But only if it’s no trouble.”

“After the morning I’ve had, coffee isn’t any trouble, it’s a medical necessity,” he assured her. “How do you take yours?”

“Black with one sugar,” she supplied, settling herself on a high stool next to a breakfast counter. It was cluttered with the remains of what looked like his breakfast, and she smiled wryly at the sight of an open packet of chocolate flavored cereal, a milk carton and a plastic bowl, the twin of the one Maree was using. Evidently Nicholas didn’t believe in healthy breakfasts, for himself, anyway.

As he spooned coffee into the pot, he looked up in time to catch her smile. “What?”

“No wonder you look so tired if you’re existing on this stuff,” she observed.

He shrugged. “Who has time to cook?”

She surprised herself by saying, “If you keep an eye on the baby, I’ll make you an omelette that will make your mouth water.”

His mouth looked as if it was watering at the very idea. His sweeping gesture took in the refrigerator and stove. “Be my guest. Everything you’re likely to need is here.”

He moved aside to let her take over the food preparation area, and she surveyed the gleaming modern stove with apprehension. She must be crazy letting a misguided sense of compassion drive her to volunteer for this. Or was she simply delaying the moment when she had to disillusion him by admitting why she was really here?

Whatever the reason, it was too late to back out now. Nicholas had thrown himself into a comfortable-looking oversize leather chair which flanked the stone fireplace. He watched with interest as she whipped up eggs and milk, shredded cheese and added a few leaves of parsley from a pot growing on the windowsill, then set the mixture sizzling in a large cast-iron pan.

It did smell good, she thought with a flush of pride, as she placed a plate on a small table beside him a few minutes later. He eyed the golden creation hungrily. “You really are a miracle worker if you cook as well as you charm babies.”

A perverse streak of pride prevented her from admitting that an omelette was the only thing she could cook, other than baby food. Her brother Sam called her the “Thrill Griller” because he never knew what was going to come out of her culinary efforts. More often than not it was a charred mess. In defiance, to avoid being the butt of any more family jokes whenever it was her turn to cook dinner, she had gritted her teeth and mastered the art of making omelettes. Served with a salad, her cheese omelette could pass any test.

It was doing so now, she saw as Nicholas proceeded to demolish the six egg treat with total disdain for the risk to his arteries from all that cholesterol. She had loaded the omelette with extra cheese since he looked as if he could use the fuel. “This is good,” he mumbled around a forkful of food. He sounded so much like Maree with her banana that Bethany had to smother a laugh. She didn’t think he would appreciate the comparison.

To distract herself while he ate, she tidied up the remains of the baby’s meal then draped a towel over her shoulder and lifted Maree out of the high chair, resting her against the towel. Several hearty burps later, one of which she would swear hadn’t come from the baby, Bethany handed Maree to her surrogate father. “Both of you look disgustingly satisfied,” she observed, feeing an unwilling frisson of pleasure at her own part in the achievement.

Nicholas began to jiggle Maree on his knee, and the baby chortled happily. “I’d say we’re both in luck with our fairy godmother, don’t you agree, Mareedle-deedle-dumpling?” The baby gurgled what sounded like agreement. “There, you see? The expert in fairy godmothers agrees with me.”

Bethany felt an ache so sharp and fierce that at first she didn’t connect it with the sight of the big man cradling the baby against the hard wall of his bare chest. But nothing else could explain the intensity of the pain which knifed through her. It had to be the image of Maree’s dark head nestled in the angle between Nicholas’s powerful jaw and his chest. He rested one hand lightly against Maree’s back while the other cupped her chubby hips as if holding a baby was the most natural thing in the world to him.

Bethany was gripped by a need so powerful it threatened her breathing. She turned away and forced herself to say around a betraying huskiness, “I’ll finish making the coffee.”

The simple act of locating cups and pouring the brewed coffee into them helped to anchor her so that by the time she turned to ask Nicholas how he preferred his coffee, her hands no longer trembled.

She needn’t have worried. In the few minutes it took her to pour the coffee, both Nicholas and the baby resting on his chest were fast asleep.