by Joey W. Hill
“You are spoiled rotten,” he said.
“Whose fault would that be?” Pulling back and giving him an enchanting smile, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and left his arms, sashaying across the aisles to rejoin Rachel.
As he moved to follow them, his attention was caught by something else. Cass was buying her mixer, telling the cashier their driver would be coming in to get it after she texted Max. Ben came to the counter. “This isn’t for a wedding,” he said mildly. “Because I already have a mixer.”
Yeah, he was doing a return volley on that earlier comment about whoever the groom might be. Ease it back, he warned himself. “You all are supposed to be letting me foot the bill today,” he reminded her.
“No,” Cass said, signing the receipt and handing it back to the cashier. She met his gaze. “Not for me.”
He deserved the ball busting, so he’d taken the previous comment with what he thought was good grace, but the implication here had his hackles up. Did Cass think this outing was about buying her off? Because it wasn’t, in any way.
Savannah had come to Cass’s elbow, as if she thought her support might be needed. Her expression said this wasn’t the place or the time. That Ben needed to hold his temper and figure out what was going on. What Cass needed from him to fix it.
He knew that. Yet he couldn’t deny the earlier comment had struck a nerve. Yeah, he hadn’t gone down on one knee or wrapped his head around the whole marriage deal, but Marcie was his. He was going to be there for her, take care of her, no matter what. For Cass to imply otherwise? That dog didn’t hunt.
“I’ll text Max to come pick it up,” he said. “If you’re okay with me handling that.”
He tried to keep the edge out of his tone, probably unsuccessfully, but Cass nodded. “Thank you. I’d appreciate it.” She put enough warmth in her voice to ease the tension. Cass was a superb corporate negotiator, and she knew how to flip a room with merely the right selection of words and tone. With that and the brief meeting of their gazes, she told him she didn’t want trouble either. She just didn’t want him to buy her anything.
He wondered how she’d feel about the two-thousand-dollar painting he’d just bought her. He’d let Marcie handle that when it arrived at Cass’s door. Probably by courier. A man knew when it was good to be prudently absent.
As they emerged from Ingredients, Rachel pointed out Baby Mine, a store for all things short people, and they headed that way. Ben took a moment to help Max put the new bags and Savannah and Cass’s boxed appliances in the car.
As Max straightened and closed the trunk, he watched the women, descending on the store like an army at the quickstep. “You want a protein bar, to help keep up your energy?”
“I don’t need help keeping anything up, thank you,” Ben retorted. At Max’s grin, he added, “You know, Jon’s been looking at auto-drive cars. You may be obsolete before you know it.”
“Good. Can focus on my fishing.”
“The first time Janet lets you clean a stinky fish on her Southern Living style back porch, I want video.”
Ben had expected the suggestion Max might be a regular visitor to Janet’s home would get him to clam up and retreat. This time he fired a decent return volley, which made Ben wonder if things were progressing faster than they knew.
“Love to chat, but I have to go sit in the car and nap. While listening to the game.” Max nodded toward the baby store. “You better hurry and catch up. They might need your opinion on baby rattles.”
The former Navy SEAL laughed and ducked Ben’s feigned punch. Reviewing a number of ways to take his revenge on the smug bastard, Ben headed for Baby Mine. He quickened his step so that he could hold the door open for an Asian mother coming out with a stroller. She had a phone tucked under her ear and a Louis Vuitton bag over the other shoulder he expected any of his women would have mugged her for. It looked big enough to be doubling as a very stylish diaper bag.
She nodded a harried thanks, but smiled as he made a face at the monument to cuteness in the conveyance, a toddler with silky black pigtails and laughing eyes who waved her drool-sticky fist at him.
For just a moment, he imagined a little girl with Marcie’s brown eyes and his dark hair. The stubborn set to her chin would be a given, since it was branded on the DNA of both parents.
Fucking Christ. What a way for his subconscious to effectively shrink his balls to the size of raisins and make his heart stop with terror. I haven’t even asked her to marry me.
Technically.
It was Dana’s fault, teasing him about what would happen when Marcie wanted children. And she would. Adopted or biological, it wouldn’t matter to her. It was a running theme among their group. Matt and Savannah intended to adopt their next child, and had already started looking into the paperwork side of things. And when Peter talked Dana into having a baby—when, not if—they’d adopt a sibling or two. All the K&A men knew not only how full foster homes and orphanages were, but what it felt like to lose parents, way before they could operate without them.
Though an adopted kid was no less scary to him than a biological one, Ben couldn’t help looking after the kid in the stroller and thinking what it would be like for someone to call him “Daddy.” Want to be tucked in at night. He thought about watching his kid run toward a swing set in the park, her singular focus on getting her little butt in that seat and pumping her legs to take her higher. No worries that mom or dad weren’t close by, keeping her—or him—safe.
It was a feeling he never remembered having, even after coming under Jonas Kensington’s protection. He was too old by that time to ever fully trust. Part of his pro bono giveback was serving as a court advocate for foster kids, and too many times that wariness in their eyes he knew so well had taken him back to the less family-friendly parts of his childhood.
But suddenly, weirdly, that elusive feeling of safety was something he really wanted to give a kid. If that kid was adopted, he’d learn he didn’t have to feel that feeling again. Or, if he came from something Ben and Marcie made, it’s be something he’d never feel at all.
He jumped like he’d been hit with a Taser as someone touched his arm. It was an attractive middle-aged redhead in low pumps, slacks and blouse. She had a pleasing scattering of freckles over her fair-skinned face.
“Sorry,” the woman said, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. “I was just trying to get into the store.”
“My bad,” he said gallantly, holding the door for her. Perhaps she was picking up something for a baby shower or a friend. Or she could be shopping for her own. Savannah was middle-aged, after all, having had Angelica later in life.
He entered after the woman, registering the chime on the door that announced their arrival. It was created by a cluster of tiny silver baby rattles, dangling from the ceiling above the door. The disturbed air currents inspired their music.
The boutique had a dozen displays that featured samples of their baby clothes, accessories, toys and miscellaneous little people stuff. A glass case offered earrings for babies with pierced ears, hair jewelry, and the option of converting your baby’s hospital wrist band to a silver or gold band.
When he noted one particular area of the store, Ben recalled his earlier conversation with Dana. He found her with the knot of women, examining a million styles of baby shoes. His quick glance registered the Ferragamo baby line. Jesus. Three-figure priced shoes for someone who couldn’t yet walk, let alone appreciate that they were wearing Italian leather versus Walmart vinyl. God bless America.
He gripped Dana’s elbow and drew her away. “I found something I want to show you.”
“What?” She dragged her feet, playfully. “I was feeling all the cool shoes.”
“Only because some of them come in your size and you thought you could get a discount if they were kid-sized. Trust me, I looked at the prices. You can’t.”
“You’re such a jerk. What is this?” She put out her hands as he brought her close enough to the shelves in the se
ction to feel their contents.
“It’s all the safety stuff. Gates, proximity and motion alarms for the doors, you name it. There’s even a monitor you can put on your kid to keep track of his breathing, heart rate, mood. A sighted parent could take a nap, go to the grocery store, whatever, and the kid would be perfectly safe.”
Dana grimaced at the exaggeration, but she took the monitor box when Ben put it in her hands. He rattled some other things hanging on the hooks. “There are locks to keep them out of cabinets, rooms, and other places parents don’t want them to go. And whatever these folks and Toys-R-Us don’t have, you know Jon can create. You want him to do it, he’ll figure out how to put the kid in some kind of hamster wheel bubble that can withstand water immersion, nuclear blast and harmful TV influences. Oh, and it will have interactive computer programming stuff, so your baby will be talking full sentences and ready to apply to Harvard by age three.”
“You are such an idiot,” she said, but she had a smile on her face.
He slid an arm around her, squeezed. “But there’s one thing that this place doesn’t have to protect your kid,” he said. “I think it’s a much more serious issue, particularly if you’re going to have one the watermelon-through-a-straw way.”
“What’s that?” Despite the outrageous metaphor, he’d made his tone so sober, a trace of alarm crossed her face.
“Given Peter’s ugly mug and grotesque size, combined with your petiteness, have you thought of the DNA combo? You could have a girl that looks like a Saints linebacker. Or a boy the size of a leprechaun, but topped with a bowling ball head like Peter’s. They’ll be mutants.”
“He or she will be beautiful, no matter what they look like,” she said staunchly.
“Oh sure. They say a mother’s love is blind, but in your case, it’s a double whammy.” He laughed and ducked away as Dana aimed a pretty powerful swing toward his head. “Hey, feel this. Stuffed animals. So soft you could sleep in a pile of them.” He filled her hands with a chick, lamb and bunny to thwart further violence.
Marcie came to them as Dana was pelting him with the stuffed creatures. She caught one of them, thrusting what she had into Dana’s now empty left hand. “Look at these tiny little spoon and bowl things.”
As Peter’s wife reflexively cooed over them in delight, Ben grinned. Marcie made a face at him, but continued to explain, in a marveling tone. “You can buy a whole infant-sized china set. They even sell it in sets of six for a baby birthday party.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Why throw a birthday party for a kid not even old enough to know what it’s about?”
“It’s for the parents more than the baby,” Rachel explained, joining them to examine the items. “But a baby reacts to the happy people around her or him, all that love, the celebration of it.”
“So take the kid to a keg party,” Ben said.
Rachel shook her head with a smile, but continued. “He or she internalizes the energy, which is good. It’s like talking to them way before they’re talking themselves. It helps them with language and comprehension.”
“Did you do that with Kyle?” Marcie asked. There was a brief pause before she asked, as if she was considering whether to do so or not, but it turned out to be the right call. Rachel’s gaze filled with fond memory, only faintly laced with the sadness from the loss of her son when he was nineteen.
“Yes. You never know if these studies are right or not, but I can’t imagine any loving mother needs to be told to talk to her child. You talk to one another for nine months while he’s in the womb. It’s just a continuation of the conversation. Kyle’s first words were Baa and Moo. I liked to read him animal stories, and I’d make all the sounds.”
Dana slid an arm around Rachel’s waist, laying her head on her shoulder. Then, playfully, she rested one of the stuffed animals, a cow, on Rachel’s bosom, and squeezed the creature, making it moo.
Rachel chuckled and nudged at her friend. “Let’s go talk Savannah into buying Angelica some more baby clothes.”
“Absolutely,” Ben said. “She only has four hundred outfits now. Clothes she’ll outgrow before she can wear them all.”
As he fully expected, they ignored him, converging on Savannah, who was contemplating a new baby monitor. Ben wandered over to the gadget area, coming to a halt before a padded automated swing.
Angelica had one of those, but this one was the latest model, with fourteen different swing settings, including side to side and bouncing up and down. There was even a place to plug in an iPod for the baby’s favorite lullaby music. The chair could be adjusted like a recliner, putting the baby in more of a sleep position, though still elevated. And there were little adjustable cushions to keep her from getting a crick in her neck. He wasn’t sure if the flexible bones of a baby really needed that, but he supposed it was the same as providing gluten-free dog food. When it came to babies and pets, marketing targeted the adults.
But as cool as that was, his attention was caught by something less techy. He drifted over to the crib area to take a closer look. Over one of them, a star system mobile was gently rotating. It had a selection of twenty-four different lullabies, plus the iPod plug-in option, but what he liked was watching the slow, drifting, up-and-down rotation of the planets and stars. They all glowed with a soft, internal light that he knew would look like a starry sky when the nursery was dark. The center pendant, the weighted item that kept the motion steady, was a tiny knight on horseback with a lance. The knight that protected the baby as the stars continued to shine and the planets to rotate.
Yeah, he was getting that. He didn’t care that some marketing nerd genius had pretty much nailed him with that finishing touch.
Her scent and heat told him Marcie was at his elbow a moment before her soft breast pressed against his arm. She leaned against him to reach forward and up, letting her fingertips drift through the moving spheres. “I love it. She’ll love it, too.”
“I used to lie on the Italian vault in the St. Louis Cemetery and look up at the stars, when I was a kid,” Ben said absently. “Though I couldn’t see them moving, rotating like that, I felt it. It was a good feeling.”
She closed her hand on his biceps. He tried to talk more about his past with her, letting her in. The good stuff was easier. He needed to tell her about Golda. He’d do that tonight. Show her the rolling pin, measuring spoons and old cookie pans he’d kept from her kitchen. The key to good cookies is parchment paper, refrigerating the dough, and most importantly, good pans. You must have good pans, Ben.
“I’m getting hungry,” Savannah said, drawing close to them. “Why don’t we do lunch after we get out of here? Before we hit any other places.”
“Absolutely not,” Ben said. “No refueling so you can drag me to more stores. Isn’t it getting time for your midday naps? Aren’t you pining for your men, and want to go home?”
Savannah punched him in the stomach and then shook out her manicured hand, grimacing. “Ow.”
“Could have told you that wasn’t a good idea,” Marcie said as Ben captured Savannah’s wrist to give her knuckles a soothing kiss. “He’s like a brick wall. But he is ticklish.”
“No, no I’m not. I swear to God, I’m going to—” He backed away as Savannah came at him, both hands outstretched and her fingers wiggling in an ominous way. Her blue eyes were sparkling. He backed right into Cass, who, as a woman with many siblings, unerringly found the right spots beneath his ribs. Twisting away in a move worthy of Elvis, he snatched up a pair of wooden spoons in the baby food area and warded them off. They were nice, flat spoons, and he knew exactly how to use them. He went on the offensive and sent Savannah and Cass dancing back as he aimed for lovely curved flanks and thighs. When they were at an impasse, he pointed a spoon at Marcie. “You are in so much trouble,” he said.
Her eyes glowed.
They grabbed lunch at the Meals from the Heart café, one of Rachel’s favorite places to eat at the French Market. Ben liked their crab cake po’ boys, so he was go
od with the choice, relieved they hadn’t chosen a fussy place that only served girl food, like salads. Though he had to admit, the raspberry feta salad with salmon Savannah chose looked decently appealing.
Once they’d ordered their food, Marcie grabbed them an empty table, coaxing some unused chairs from other occupied tables to seat them all. As they ate and talked, they people-watched, always a lively pastime in the Jackson Square area. There was plenty of foot traffic, musicians and other buskers who routinely entertained and cajoled tourists into donations to their efforts.
“Hot Toddy next,” Dana said, pointing a French fry in Ben’s direction. She’d gotten the crab cakes but had ordered fries from another less health-conscious vendor. And the serving was large. Far larger than a tiny woman needed. He snagged a couple off her plate and grinned as Cass smacked his hand.
“That’s just mean,” Rachel said. “Stealing from a blind woman.”
“Though likely saving my ass from the extra pounds,” Dana said. “Here. Eat some of these, Rach. Jon likes all your soft places.”
“Peter doesn’t like yours?” Cass asked.
“Of course he does. But he’s a workout Nazi. I don’t want to give him any additional excuse to torture me.”
“At least not in the wrong ways,” Marcie put in.
“So says the pain freak,” Dana said dryly.
Marcie’s gaze slid to Ben’s and held for a lingering moment. Yeah, she was. Thank God.
He stretched an arm over the blind woman's shoulder, flicking her opposite ear. She planted a sharp elbow in his ribs in retaliation.
"Don't make me separate you two," Savannah warned.
"They become a mother, and all of a sudden they're in charge of everyone," Ben complained. He nudged Dana. "So why exactly are we going to a lingerie store, other than to endanger my life with all your husbands?"
"These." Dana cupped her small breasts. "I want something that makes my tits look bigger and set up higher. He likes them the size they are, but no reason not to plump them up a little. Give them a different look. Variety and all that.”
