by Lori Wilde
Her legs looked even better in a skirt than they had in the tight black jeans she’d worn the other night. Fortunately for him, she had a prickly personality and seemed to have no personal interest in him.
Good. She was trouble. If he let her get close, it would be Margo all over again.
He staggered into his apartment, tired from pulling a night shift that went into overtime. He wasn’t looking for a new girlfriend. Not at all. In fact, his personal life had been pleasantly uncomplicated after Margo dumped him six months ago. He wanted things to stay that way.
He tried to put Rebecca Ryan out of his mind as he stripped for a shower. He was exhausted enough to sleep for twelve hours, and he wanted to putter around his new apartment making small repairs.
Rebecca had done him a good turn, telling him about the vacancy. He felt totally at home in the three oversized rooms with high ceilings and glossy hardwood floors.
He strolled naked into the tiled bathroom which had the only jarring colors in the otherwise tranquil living space. Turquoise and pink. But he appreciated the big walk-in shower with the multiple showerheads, which despite what Rebecca had told him, gushed scalding water from the pipes as long as none of the other apartments were running their faucets at the same time.
Although he’d only been here three days, he had heard nothing from the two rear apartments, one of which was occupied by Mrs. Vander Polder herself, but muffled sounds from above sometimes let him know what Rebecca was doing. He could tell she was up there, but she was pretty quiet and never kept him awake.
At least not from her noises.
She’d beaten him into the shower and the hot water, but he was too tired to wait. He settled for the tepid spray, humming to himself as he washed away the lingering remnants of the sweaty squad room and the disinfectant mustiness of the jail cells.
The water pressure abruptly increased, stinging his back and washing away the last of the soapsuds. He turned off the faucet, but instead of the usual squeal from the pipes, he heard a bloodcurdling scream.
His neighbor was shrieking her head off!
He raced to the bedroom and grabbed his blue jeans, struggled to pull them up over his wet legs, and zippered on the run. Instinctively grabbing his gun from the bedside drawer, he tore out of his apartment and zipped up the stairs.
“Rebecca! Are you all right?” He pounded on her door, wondering if he would have to force his way in. The last time he broke down a door, he dislocated his shoulder.
The door flew open.
He saw the broom first. She held it like a baseball bat, and then he noticed she wore a short yellow robe tied so tightly around her waist that her nipples pushed against the fabric. Quickly, he averted his gaze.
“It is in the bathroom!”
She led the way, still holding the broom like a weapon, the silky wrap clinging wetly to her bottom. When she stopped abruptly in the doorway, he nearly knocked her over.
“In the tub,” she gasped, maneuvering around him to the shelter of his back.
A green shower curtain with big yellow fish on it was drawn around a claw-foot tub. He braced himself to encounter anything from a prowler to an escaped boa constrictor.
Gingerly, he pulled aside the curtain and saw…
Nothing.
“I nearly stepped on it,” she said.
He moved to the edge of the tub and looked down at a rubber mat on the bottom. He laughed from relief. “It’s pretty big, isn’t it?”
“It’s not funny. I hate spiders. If I’d stepped on him…” She shuddered and hugged herself.
“I won’t need this.” He laid his revolver on her sink counter, plucked up a couple of tissues from a nearby box, and scooped up the hairy brown wolf spider the size of the half-dollar. He opened up the window and released the spider to the wild.
She pressed her palms together. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“No trouble.”
“I really am truly grateful. It was silly to scream, but I have a spider phobia. The darn thing terrified me.”
“Hey, I understand. Glad to help.” He looked directly into her hazel eyes and felt mushy inside, like an adolescent with a crush. Crazy, since he was only doing a neighbor a favor.
She walked into the living room, then turned to thank him again and caught him looking her over. The little wraparound thing was clinging to her like a second skin, with big wet spots between her shoulder blades and across her bottom.
“Well, I’d better—you know—go.” He didn’t know which felt sillier, carrying a gun to eliminate a spider or getting hot and bothered over woman he should be avoiding.
Back in the sanctuary of his apartment, Nate peeled off his damp jeans in the living room and hit the shower for the second time that hour. Turning on the cold faucet full force, he let the water pelt his body until his skin was a field of goosebumps.
That ought to dampen his desires.
She’d helped him get this apartment, and he’d gotten rid of her spider. They were even. He didn’t owe her anything else. He knew what she was. If he gave her a chance to dump all her problems on him, she would. He’d been down that road before, and he vowed to steer clear of such messy relationships.
It’s not really her problem, is it? You’re the one who has a thing for damsels in distress.
Yes, exactly. That was why he had to steer clear.
What was that fable that said if you saved a person’s life, you were responsible for them for the rest of it? If it was true, that made a guy hesitate to be a hero.
Luckily, he hadn’t saved her life. All he’d done was free a nonlethal spider back to the outdoors, and that didn’t make him his neighbor’s guardian angel.
Because here was the deal. Nate suspected that he could fall hard for Rebecca with her wide-eyed innocence, hot little body, and her high, breathy voice.
Best defense in cases like this?
Get the heck off the playing field.
4
Maybe she should offer to cook dinner for her new neighbor? Becky pondered the next afternoon after she saw him leaving for work.
Becky owed Deputy Dalton something for disposing of the spider and being so nice about it, but common sense had made her hold back the invitation.
Mostly she was too embarrassed about screaming for help to face him again.
She hated her phobia almost as much as she loathed creeping, crawling, detestable spiders. Considering she’d grown up on a farm where the ants were big enough to carry off an ear of corn and grasshoppers can qualify for the Olympic high jump, she was as mystified as her family about her arachnophobia.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been too frightened to notice the open snap of his jeans or that they’d clung to his body like plastic wrap.
Having him in the apartment, bare-chested where she could see the silky dark whorls disappearing into the zipper flap was too much.
And darned if his naked toes weren’t cute! She couldn’t say that about many men, not that she’d made an extensive study of men’s toes.
He wasn’t for her, but she would not feel guilty about feasting her eyes on his big gorgeous body. It was art appreciation, like admiring a handsome actor on a lobby poster at the movie theater.
Just a little harmless fun.
She stayed home that evening, catching up on the minor jobs that added up to an enormous yawn—tweezing her eyebrows, washing out her delicate undies, and balancing her checkbook.
Around nine thirty, she was considering an early bedtime when her buzzer sounded. The Victorian, while renovated, hadn’t been upgraded with high technology, and Becky couldn’t just push a button to open the front door below.
Instead, she had to trot down to the entryway and check out the visitor. Instead of an intercom to screen visitors, there was only a peephole. Totally old-school.
The young woman standing outside on the porch was a stranger. She was tall and exceptionally pretty with curly dark shoulder-length hair, a perfect oval face, and soft brow
n eyes.
Puzzled, but curious, Becky opened the door…
And then she saw the baby.
“Are you Nate’s neighbor?” asked the lovely young lady with flawless skin.
“That’s me.” Becky eyed the baby sitting in a car seat on the front porch.
The child wore a pink cotton sleeper with white fuzzy bunnies dancing across the front. She had her mother’s dark hair, already a curly cap on her head, and her tiny fist clenched tight.
The baby stirred and opened her eyes, and Becky could see they were heavenly blue—an oddly familiar shade that she just peered into that afternoon.
“I rang and rang Nate's buzzer, but he must be working. That is so like him. Never available when I need him.” The beautiful young woman puckered her lips and frowned.
Becky shrugged. “I think he might work the three to eleven shift.”
“Oh, dear.” She sighed.
Becky tore her attention from the baby who was smiling up at her and focused on the woman.
Who was she? Nate’s ex-wife? Or girlfriend? An abandoned lover? It was none of her business whose baby this was, but Nate had just rented a new apartment, a bachelor pad, as far as she could tell.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” the visitor wailed. “This is terrible. I was so counting on him!”
For the first time, Becky noticed a town car idling at the curb with the headlights on.
“This is my worst nightmare.” The young woman sighed. “Why can’t he be home when I need him?”
Because he’s out earning a living, Becky thought, but decided the situation didn’t call for her to weigh in.
The baby made a cooing noise, and she ached to pick up the little one.
“What’s going on?” Becky’s curiosity got the better of her, and she couldn’t resist asking. “Can I do anything to help?”
The young mother pressed her lips, and she looked as if she was considering whether to unburden herself to Becky. “I was hoping Nate could watch her.”
“I could watch her for you until he gets home.” Now why had she said that?
What was wrong with her? Why was she offering to babysit this stranger’s child? Her better judgment was screaming no, no, no! But the woman seemed at her wits' end.
“I can’t.” The woman shook her head. “That’s just too much to ask. I need to talk to Nate. I’ve texted him three times and he hasn’t answered.”
“If he’s deeply involved in his work, he might not have time to check his phone for messages,” Becky pointed out.
The baby whimpered, and the driver at the curb honked the horn. The young woman raised her hand and waved at the driver.
“I can’t take her with me.” The mother rubbed her forehead. “What am I going to do?”
“Honestly, I don’t mind watching her until Nate gets home.”
“I’m in so much trouble. I was counting on Nate, and now I’m in a terrible bind. He has to take care of Lucy. There’s no one else I can ask.” Her eyes misted.
“But Nate has a job. He works. How do you expect him to take care of a baby?”
What was this all about? What could she say to the mother of a blue-eyed angel, a mother with luminous brown eyes, definitely brown? Becky couldn’t deny the obvious: Nate, baby, beautiful woman frantically searching for him…
Nate had to be Lucy’s baby daddy. Not that she was judging. It was no business of hers.
The driver honked again.
The mom dithered, looking from Becky to the baby to the car and back. She seemed frozen, unable to decide.
Becky took charge. “Go tell the driver to hold his horses, and you bring the baby upstairs to my apartment. I’ll watch her until Nate gets home. Problem solved.”
“I’ll pay you,” the woman said, desperation in her voice.
“You will not. In Falling Star, we help our friends and neighbors.” Besides, this was something she could do to repay Nate for dispatching that spider and not hauling her into the station when he caught her breaking into Green Thumb.
“You’re a lifesaver! I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” The grateful woman rushed down the sidewalk to the car, spoke to the driver, and then raced back to the front door.
“Come on up.” Becky held the door open and as she did, noticed the accoutrements that went along with the baby—overstuffed diaper bag, a playpen, and a stuffed toy that was actually a carrot. “Can I help with something?”
“Thanks. It would really be an enormous help if you wouldn’t mind grabbing the playpen and the stroller. They are so bulky. I can barely manage.”
“This way.” Juggling the playpen and carrot doll, Becky led her into the house.
Once they were inside Becky’s apartment, the woman settled the car seat with the baby in it on the braided rug in the center of the living room.
Becky dropped to her knees, fascinated by the miniature person solemnly giving her the once-over. “Hello there, Lucy. We’re going to have such fun getting to know each other.”
“I really can’t thank you enough,” the woman said. “Are you sure I can’t pay you?”
An errant thought occurred to Becky. “Umm, how do I know Nate will take the baby when he gets home?”
“He will.” Momentarily, the woman looked dubious. “Of course, he will. Family is important to him.”
Becky hoped so. She didn’t mind keeping a baby for an hour or two, but any longer than that…
“I’m so sorry to do this to you. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of leaving Lucy with a stranger. But I’m desperate and you live right above Nate. And he told me about you. So, it’s not like you’re a total stranger.”
Nate had talked about her to this woman?
Becky was about to ask another question when she noticed tears streaming down the woman’s face. She pulled tissues from the pocket of a cotton knit sweater she wore over a short, flowered skirt and a white lace camisole. Becky felt a rush of envy. The woman looked beautiful even when she was sobbing. Becky was an ugly crier.
“Everything Lucy needs is in the bag.” The woman sniffled, getting hold of herself. “I’ve got formula in here.” She opened up the diaper bag to show Becky where the bottles and formula were stored. “The diapers are on this side.” She patted the tote. “And in the middle compartment are her onesies, dresses, socks, and an extra pair of shoes.”
Suddenly, Becky was swamped with doubt. This woman was a stranger. For all she knew, the woman didn’t even know Nate. Did she have the word “sucker” carved into her forehead?
What if the woman abandoned the baby and never came back? What if Nate had no idea who the woman and baby were? She hadn’t even asked the woman her name. How daft was that?
“What’s your name?” Becky asked. “And you need to leave your cell number, so I can contact you if something happens.” Like Nate not agreeing to keep the baby.
“My name’s Freddie.” She gave a shaky laugh and dried the rest of the tears.
“Freddie?” Had she heard right?
“Short for Frederica. My parents thought I was going to be a boy. Sometimes sonograms are wrong, especially twenty-five years ago when I was born. They had already picked out the name Frederick, so they just pivoted.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Freddie.” Becky got up off the floor from where she was still crouched in front of the baby and extended a hand to the woman.
Freddie grasped Becky’s hand with both of hers. “You are an absolute angel. The universe will bless you for this in abundant ways.”
Becky didn’t know about that; she just knew this was the kind thing to do. “You’re so welcome. Don’t worry a bit about Lucy. I’ll take excellent care of her.”
Freddie’s eyes misted with tears again, but she blinked them back ferociously. Leaning down, she kissed her baby on the top of her head. “Mommy loves you more than life itself, sweetheart. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The baby look
ed up at her mother with those big blue eyes and grinned so widely it sliced Becky’s heart wide open.
It must kill Freddie to leave her. Whatever had her upset had to be something big for her to leave this little one behind. She wanted to know what that something was but couldn’t bring herself to ask.
“Could you get Nate to please contact me when he gets home?”
“You can count on it.”
“I can’t help thinking that under different circumstances you and I would be brilliant friends.” Freddie stuck the wad of damp tissues into her pocket.
Oh yes, just what Becky wanted, to be besties with the baby mama of the guy she was crushing on.
Crushing on?
Where on earth had that thought come from? She wasn’t crushing on Nate Dalton. Oh, sure, he looked fabulous without a shirt on. And those toes! She’d never really had a foot fetish before, but for Nate’s toes she could develop one.
Stop it.
Outside, the town car driver gave a long, loud honk.
“I need to go.” Freddie gestured with a helpless look on her face. “Please take good care of her.”
“You got it. I’m a country girl. I’ve raised plenty of critters.”
“Yes.” Freddie nodded. “I can see it. There is an earth mother quality about you.”
Earth mother? Becky wasn’t sure she liked that. Although she had grown up on a farm, she’d gotten away from there as soon as she could.
Another honk from the town car.
Freddie looked torn into two pieces as she stared down at her baby. Becky could see how difficult this was for her.
Picking up the baby, Becky settled her onto her hip, held up one of the baby’s little hands, and used it to wave goodbye. “Bye-bye, Mommy.”
Freddie raised her shoulders to her ears, ducked her head, and fled from the apartment without a backward glance as if knowing one more look at her baby and she couldn’t bear to leave her.
With a hand at Lucy’s back, Becky walked to the window, parted the lace curtains, and stared out the window.
Freddie jumped into the back seat of the town car, and it pulled away from the curb. One last time, Becky raised Lucy’s hand and whispered, “Bye-bye, Mommy.”
