The Baby Consultant

by Anne Marie Winston

  Two hours later she was staring in openmouthed shock at Jack Ferris’s estimate for a brochure, which had arrived in her afternoon mail. And Dee said his rates were reasonable? Since Deirdre also had her own small business, Frannie had assumed she was as frugal as Frannie herself. Maybe she was. But one thing she knew was that it was going to be a while before Brooks’ Bridals could afford to advertise.

  Quite a while.

  It was a disappointing thought. She’d been pleased—no, more like ecstatic—at the success she’d had since opening her business. Coming to a city, even a small one like Westminster, alone had been terrifying for a girl who’d lived with a large family all of her life. It had been strange not having anyone to take care of at first, so she’d thrown herself into her work.

  And it certainly had paid off. She’d hired her first assistant seamstress recently, and four months ago she had brought in a part-time coordinator who went to the weddings and fussed over the last-minute details of making brides appear perfect. But it looked like she’d have to wait awhile before she grew any more. Especially if these were the current rates of advertising.

  She went to the telephone and looked up the number for Your Ad Goes Here, Jack Ferris’s company. The same girl who’d greeted her the day she’d been at his office answered the phone, and when Frannie asked for Jack, explained that he was out of town and was expected home soon. Frannie had to settle for leaving a message.

  Five days later, she tried again. This time a canned message played and recorded her call. The same message was on the machine every day for the rest of that week, saying little except that the agency was temporarily closed due to a family emergency.

  By the following Friday, Frannie was out of patience with Jack Ferris and his appalling business manners, family problems or not. This time she looked up his home number and tried it.

  No answer, just his machine.

  Doggone it, enough was enough. She’d been patient, and relatively pleasant, for a month now. This was inexcusable.

  She needed those photos. If Jack Ferris wouldn’t answer his phone, she was going to camp on his doorstep until she got back her portfolio.

  The address turned out to be a pretty brick condo that looked spacious and pricey from the outside. She rang the bell five times, but no one answered, and she heard no voices or noise from inside. As she expected, the door was locked. Dam that man! In addition to being an annoying flirt, he was irresponsible. She’d told him during their meeting that she couldn’t be without the photos for very long. He’d promised to call her within the week.

  One week. Hah! Soon it would be four of them. She’d noticed a framed university diploma on his wall, so she knew he’d been taught to count. Obviously the lesson hadn’t stuck.

  The condo was an end unit. Anger made her bold and she marched around to the back and mounted the two-level wooden deck. There was a sliding glass door just to the left of an enormous barbecue grill, and she walked over and peered inside. The vertical blinds were pulled back, and she could see a kitchen with a dining area and beyond that, the beginnings of a living room. The counters were nearly immaculate, spoiled only by a lone coffee cup resting on its side and a newspaper which had spilled from the counter to the floor.

  Weird. The place was immaculate otherwise. Those two small hints at sloppiness didn’t fit. None of her brothers could manage to pick up after themselves, but it wasn’t selective. Everything they owned was a jumbled mess. Maybe Jack had a cleaning lady who just hadn’t been in yet this week.

  Still... something bothered her. It looked almost as if Jack had gone tearing off somewhere in a tremendous hurry, and hadn’t been back since.

  Well, it was none of her concern, she told herself firmly, as she descended the wooden steps and walked back the way she had come. All she wanted was her property back. Then he could—

  A silver sports car pulled into the driveway beside her van just as she opened the driver’s door. Through its windshield, she caught a glimpse of Jack Ferris’s face, which was obscured by the frame as the car slid to a smooth stop beside her.

  Finally! She was elated. It was rare for her to get angry, and rarer still for her to utter so much as a sharp word, but several choice ones sprang to the front of her mind. She started to step around to the driver’s side, but stopped in her tracks, staring through the passenger side window. In the passenger seat was strapped an infant car seat.

  And in the car seat was what appeared to be a very young baby, screaming its little head off.

  Before the sight really had time to register, Jack popped out of the car exactly like a child’s jack-in-the-box, arms waving wildly and hair disheveled. Only no one pushed him back down into his box. He sprinted around the car, sparing Frannie a distracted, mildly puzzled glance and a “Hi,” as he tore open the passenger door and started to release the restraints holding the infant in place.

  With the door open, the baby’s shrieks increased in volume immediately. Its little voice sounded hoarse, like it had been screaming for a while, and its little fists and face were red with rage.

  Jack scooped up the baby awkwardly, holding it loosely in one arm. His other hand made patting motions in the air near the child’s kicking, cycling legs, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to go about comforting the baby. Then he turned to face Frannie.

  “Uh, Miss Brooks, right?”

  “Yes.” She strove to keep her voice crisp and professional, though it was getting more and more difficult to ignore the infant squalling between them. “I’ve been trying to contact you. I need my portfolio back. Immediately.”

  Jack juggled the child into his other arm and reached behind the seat for a pale yellow diaper bag, stuffed to the brim. The child kept screaming. “Oh, man...” He shook his head. “I completely forgot you. I bet you’d like to clobber me.”

  He straightened up and for the first time she saw how very weary he looked. His eyes were dull and red rimmed, and his hair was standing on end where it was long enough on the top. The squirming child slipped a little in his grip and Frannie reacted automatically, placing her hands beneath the baby’s tiny body. She couldn’t stand that screaming another minute. It cut at her soft heart and reminded her of all the nieces and nephews she’d rocked to sleep over the years.

  “May I?” She slipped one hand up under the little wobbly head as Jack nodded immediately.

  “Please,” he said, and it was heartfelt. He released the baby and Frannie automatically shifted it into a close embrace against her shoulder, cupping the padded bottom with one hand while the other rubbed small, soothing circles around the infant’s tiny back. She realized she had started a patter of gentle baby talk, rocking gently from side to side the moment the child settled into her arms, and she huffed out a breath of amused resignation at herself. Old habits came back dangerously easily.

  Jack had gone around to the trunk and was lifting out a portable crib and several other bags. Buried beneath all the items he was balancing in his grip, he came around to Frannie’s side and peered down at the baby. The child finally was quieting, its little chest catching in occasional spasms as its sobs subsided.

  “How’d you do that?” he demanded. “She’s been screaming since the moment we got off the plane.”

  Frannie was astonished. “You’ve been flying with her?” She realized the child was a girl as she noted his use of the feminine pronoun.

  He nodded. “It’s a long story. But I’m sure you’re not interested.” He hesitated. “Could you hold her until I get the stuff out of the car and set up this crib?”

  Frannie nodded.

  “The thing is,” he said over his shoulder as he started for the door, “your pictures are at my office. If you can wait until tomorrow, I’ll get my secretary to deliver them personally first thing in the morning. The office has been closed—that’s why you couldn’t reach anyone.” He shook his head. “I’m really sorry. I thought I had all the loose ends tied up.”

  She trailed along behind him, croon
ing to the baby. Her portfolio seemed less important now, and she was ashamed of her anger. Whatever he’d been doing, Jack clearly hadn’t simply neglected to get her things back to her. “That would be fine.”

  Stepping through the door, she took in the expensive furniture and the lush, deep pile of the carpet. Jack had dumped a pile of baby accessories on the couch and was pulling open the portable crib. Unfortunately, it was designed like most things that were advertised as easy to set up and take down. As fast as he pushed one side into place, another snapped back up. He finally got smart and planted one enormous loafer at one end, using his upper body to stretch the two opposing sides. That left one more side to be pulled into place, and Frannie took pity on him. She walked over and got a firm grip on the rail with her free hand. “Okay, now pull,” she said.

  The crib popped open and Jack stood back with a sigh. “Thanks. Why don’t you just put her down in there while I get the rest of the stuff? She’ll probably play or something until I get unpacked.”

  He was kidding. She hoped. Cautiously she pointed to a mechanism on the bottom of the crib. “You need to push this down to lock it into place. Otherwise, it could fold up with her in it.”

  Jack stared at the little lever. “Oh.” He reached down and secured it. “It’s a good thing you’re here.”

  “Um, I hate to be a busybody, but I don’t think she’s going to be very happy if I put her down.” Frannie glanced at the baby, who wasn’t screaming anymore, but was definitely beginning to root around, banging her little head against Frannie’s sweater in a vain quest for dinner.

  Jack looked dubious. “Well, I’ll take her. I guess I can unpack with one hand.”

  He started to reach for the child with a distinctly apprehensive expression on his face.

  “Jack.”

  “What?” He paused.

  She waited, but he seemed genuinely oblivious to the infant’s increasingly restless behavior. Finally she said, “I think she’s hungry.”

  He smacked himself in the forehead. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? The lady on the plane said she’d probably get hungry every three or four hours.”

  This was getting stranger and stranger. Frannie couldn’t imagine what Jack Ferris was doing with this baby. Clearly, he didn’t have the faintest notion of how to care for her. “How long has it been since she was changed?” she asked.

  He speared one hand through his hair and Frannie realized why it was standing on end. “I don’t know. I guess since...I think one of the flight attendants changed her.”

  “You think? Where is her mother, Jack?” And why on God’s green earth would she entrust her to your care!

  Jack’s shoulders sagged. “Her mother is dead.” He looked at the baby. “I’m all she’s got now.”

  Her mother is dead. Whatever answer she’d imagined, that one had been far, far from even making the list. Slowly, she sank down on the edge of the sofa. The weight of the baby in her arms suddenly seemed vitally warm and alive, precious and fragile. She looked down at the little girl, noting the dusting of blond hair, the flushed cheek and tiny, perfect lips.

  “Do you mean you’re keeping her?” She hated to keep asking intrusive questions, but her conscience would not, absolutely could not, let her walk away from this place until she was sure the infant was being properly cared for.

  Jack sat down opposite her on a wide hassock. “Yes. I’m her legal guardian, and her only living relative.” His elbows rested on his knees, and his big hands dangled between them. He dropped his head.

  This puzzle didn’t have enough pieces for her to even frame it up with all the straight edges. “Is she...are you the father?”

  Jack’s head shot up. “Of course not!” He glared at her.

  She shrugged. “It was a logical question.” The baby was growing angry again, and she stood and rocked her. “Maybe we’d better change her and feed her.”

  “Right.” He stood, too, and looked around for the diaper bag. Then he hesitated, turning back to her. “Miss Brooks—”

  “Frannie.” She smiled. “Miss Brooks is too formal for someone who’s about to get spit up on.”

  “You’ll stay for a while?” His face lit up so pathetically she would have laughed if the whole situation wasn’t so sad. “I don’t want to intrude if you have plans, but I need a crash course in baby care. Just the basics, until I can take her to a doctor and figure out this whole deal.”

  She wanted to tell him “the basics” were a major part of a young baby’s life, but she sensed he was about at the end of his rope. “Sure. I can stay for a while.”

  He was a very different man from the self-confident flirt she’d met in his office last month. While she changed the baby—whose name, Jack said, was Alexa—he brought in the rest of the things he’d stashed in the car. Then he hovered, uncertainty radiating from him like a bad sunburn, watching her mix formula, test the temperature of the liquid on her wrist and settle down on the sofa to feed Alexa.

  She realized he’d gotten a yellow legal pad at some point. “Are you going to try to work tonight? Because you really need to understand that babies—”

  “I’m not working.” Wearily, he plopped down beside her. “I’m taking notes on everything you did so I don’t forget it when I’m on my own.”

  “There are books that can tell you this stuff,” she said gently.

  He’d let his head drop back against the couch and the notes lay half-finished on his lap. “How did you learn so much about babies?”

  “I have three younger brothers,” she said. “And two of them have children that I’ve helped to raise.”

  His eyes were closed and she risked staring for a moment, taking in the details of his profile, the enormous hands spread over thighs that looked heavily muscled even when disguised by his khaki pants. His jaw was heavy with stubble several shades darker than his hair, as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days. It only emphasized how very masculine he was, as if she wasn’t already aware of that.

  As she shifted the baby to her shoulder to burp her, her arm brushed against his. It was like brushing concrete. No, that was wrong. Concrete didn’t exude heat; concrete didn’t tempt her to touch. His arms were as toasty as if he had a furnace inside, packed in solid muscle.

  He turned toward her then, and she forgot all about her speculations. He was closer than their limited acquaintance dictated, and as he put one hand against Alexa’s back, he leaned even closer. “Thank you,” he said, and she watched his lips form the words with a fascinated detachment. How would those lips feel against hers? Would his kisses be tentative, persuasive? Or was he as sure of his kissing as he was of his flirting? If so, he would be a very dangerous man.

  And this was a dangerous line of thinking. One she had no intention of pursuing.

  “You realize a child is going to change your life completely,” she said to him. “Are you sure there’s no one more—no one else to take her?”

  “I’m sure,” he said. Although he still was turned toward her, his eyes were looking into a memory she couldn’t share, and the sudden grief in his face unnerved her.

  Without thinking, she put her free hand to the side of his cheek.

  Immediately he covered it with his own, closing his eyes as if to savor the contact. “Alexa is my niece,” he said. He released the pressure holding her hand in place, but turned his own and carried hers to his lap, where he played absently with her fingers. “My brother and his wife were killed in an accident.”

  Frannie could see the naked sense of loss on his face. “So your brother is—was her father?” It took a determined effort of will to ignore the gentle rub of his fingers over her knuckles.

  “Yeah. Randy and Gloria had been trying for a long time to start a family. They were pretty thrilled when Alexa was born.” He squeezed his eyes closed, as if to deny reality. “A tractor-trailer jackknifed and slid into them on a highway two weeks after she was born. Alexa wasn’t injured because her car seat sat so low in the back
seat—the whole top half of the car was sheared off.”

  Frannie stifled a small cry. Cold prickles of goose bumps spread down her arms and she shivered involuntarily. She turned her palm up and linked her fingers through his, gripping tightly. “Oh, Jack, I am so sorry. What a terrible tragedy.” The full impact of the story sank in on her as the baby on her shoulder made a funny little lip-smacking sound and she realized this child would never know her mother or father, that her uncle Jack was the only family she had.

  He sighed heavily. “I’ve been stuck in Florida for almost a month, disposing of their estate and straightening out the custody arrangements for Alexa.” The small messy details of the coffee and newspaper she’d glimpsed in his kitchen through the back door made sense now. Those would have been the last things on his mind when he got that phone call.

  Well, Alexa certainly could have fared worse. “She’s a lucky little girl,” she said. “I don’t know a lot of men who would willingly take on a twenty-year commitment without some serious reservations.”

  “Oh,I have reservations,” Jack assured her. “You’ve seen the extent of my child-rearing skills. Alexa might not think she’s so lucky after a couple of days with me.” A trace of humor surfaced in his eyes and then he grinned. “And I don’t know the first thing about how to handle puberty and dating.”

  Frannie’s opinion of Jack Ferris had risen significantly in the past hour; now it rose even more. “I was thinking more along the lines of how a baby is going to torpedo your social life. Not to mention your romantic interests.”

  “Yeah, I can foresee some serious changes in my future. I may have to get married just to get some help with this.” He indicated the child, now dozing on Frannie’s shoulder.

  He might have been joking, but his words struck a nerve she thought had been buried. “Why?” Her voice was crisp, reflecting the resentment that gripped her. “Women aren’t automatically programmed to be the family caretakers.”