The Baby Came C.O.D.

by Marie Ferrarella

  A mistake, that's all it was. A mistake, nothing more. Be was relieved. And somehow disappointed.

  He was tired—that's what he was, he told himself.

  "It's been a hard day," he mumbled. Hell of a pitiful excuse for acting like a skittish virginal maiden in a morality play. Claire probably thought he was some kind of an inexperienced dolt who'd created a baby his first time at bat because he didn't know what he was doing.

  For two cents, he'd show her he knew what he was doing. Right here, right now, acting under the least bit of provocation, he'd take her into his arms and show her that he could kiss a woman senseless if he chose. Well, maybe not right now—there were kids to put to bed first....

  Evan dragged his hand through his hair. What a mess, he thought, exasperated.

  A smile began to curl from the tips of her toes, winding its way through her body like a fresh, fragrant summer breeze, conquering the terrain it passed through.

  She wasn't altogether sure just what had happened here, but she knew she liked it. And she definitely liked his flavor. Dark, manly. She pressed her lips together to savor it again before nodding. "All right, then, we're off."

  Libby's hand in hers, she half led, half dragged the girl out the door.

  Evan remained rooted to the spot, wondering if he was losing his mind. Wondering if wondering about it meant that he had already lost it.

  And wondering what it would be like to kiss her in earnest instead of by mistake.

  He didn't stand there wondering for long. As soon as the door closed, Rachel's mouth opened. A lusty cry emerged, made that much more powerful because she'd rested up for it

  It snared Evan's attention immediately, banishing everything else to the background.

  "Oh, God."

  * * *

  Claire heard the cries through the door. She heard Evan's response, as well. For a long moment, she wavered, torn between coming to his rescue and sticking to her guns.

  She did have things to do, she reasoned sternly, and she couldn't spend all her waking hours holding Evan's hand.

  Not that holding his hand would exactly come under the heading of unpleasant hardships.

  Upbraiding herself, Claire kept walking. She'd put in a long day on the heels of an endless night. She needed her rest, too. Besides, she couldn't get involved with a man who might or might not be involved with another woman who in turn was the mother of a child who might or might not be his.

  It was too complicated to sort out tonight.

  Libby looked over her shoulder at Evan's house the entire way. "Aren't we going to help him?" she asked mournfully.

  Almost as mournful, Claire thought, as Evan probably was right now.

  "We are," she said firmly, unlocking her door. "By letting him help himself." She ushered Libby in and closed the door. Claire tossed her purse on the side table. "He's not going to learn how to take care of Rachel unless he does it by himself."

  Libby wasn't convinced. Mr. Q. had looked funny when they left Like his tummy hurt or something. "What if he breaks her?"

  "Then he'll call."

  That made sense to Libby.

  Evan wanted to call. A dozen times or so, he had wanted to call. He had even gone so far as to punch in six of the seven digits of Claire's telephone number on two different occasions before he let the receiver drop back into the cradle.

  No, damn it, he wasn't going to break down. He wasn't going to give that woman the satisfaction of calling her and asking for help. He had two master's degrees, for heaven's sakes, gotten simultaneously—while working. Better than anyone else, he knew what it meant to be under pressure. Hell, he thrived on pressure.

  He could do this.

  He couldn't do this, he thought miserably several hours later.

  Pressure was one thing, but none of the pressure he'd ever been under had meant being knee-deep in diapers. Evan felt like a man sleepwalking through a nightmare.

  For lack of a changing table, and with a sense of horror as to what any leaks might do to the polished finish on his antique desk or his coffee table, Evan had Rachel lying on a blanket on his bed when he changed her diaper.

  "Doesn't any of this stuff stay inside of you?" he asked as he took off yet another soggy, misshapen wrapper. He'd lost count as to how many.

  There was no pattern to it, either. Rachel needed to be changed before she ate, after she ate and when she didn't eat at all.

  He set the bottle of talcum powder aside and looked at her accusingly. "You spit up, you discharge—are you sure you're not hollow?"

  Rachel responded by kicking her chubby little legs so hard, the tab on the diaper ripped off just as he was trying to close its mate. It hung there at her hip, useless.

  "Great."

  Force of habit had him looking at the clock on his night- stand. It was a little past four in the morning. By his reckoning, he'd gotten in about five and a half minutes of sleep since Claire had, with malice aforethought, cruelly abandoned him.

  "We're down to our last four diapers. You'd better learn some bladder control, young lady—or I'd better get smart and start investing in the company that makes these things."

  As he spoke, Rachel stared at him with mesmerized eyes. If he didn't know any better, Evan would have said that she understood every word.

  Which was absurd.

  Absurd, huh? So what did that make him? He was the one talking to her as if she understood.

  With a frustrated sigh, he slipped one of the last remaining diapers under her bottom. He tossed the useless diaper into the corner, on top of the others. Hidden beneath was a wastepaper basket long since full. He meant to throw it out when he got the chance. Probably sometime in the next month.

  This was becoming old hat to him, he realized dully as he fastened the tabs in place again. At least he was getting faster at it.

  Mercifully, Rachel refrained from executing any high kicks, and the diaper held.

  "There, try to keep it dry for more than five minutes, okay?"

  Picking her up again, he made his way back into the spare bedroom. The one that had been turned into a makeshift nursery. As gently as possible, Evan laid Rachel down in the crib, then backed away.

  He made it all the way to the threshold before Rachel began to cry.

  Evan cringed, but remained where he was. "I don't care," he told her. "Hear me? Cry all you want, I'm leaving."

  To demonstrate, he shut off the light and closed the door firmly behind him.

  Rachel continued crying.

  With the determination of a man who knew in his heart that he was right, Evan went to his room, shut the door and crawled into bed.

  The sound of her cries followed him, seeping through the crack under the door.

  Desperate for some sleep, Evan pulled his pillow over his head and tried to think of something, anything, that would help him block out the noise.

  His mind was a blank.

  And then he thought of Claire. Of the sweet sting of her lips as they'd suddenly touched his. He could almost feel them now as he lay there in the dark. They were soft, silky, as light as a butterfly as they passed over his mouth.

  This wasn't any good.

  He tried to think of something else.

  And couldn't.

  One way or another, that Walker woman was going to kill him, he thought grudgingly. Muttering a barrage of choice words, Evan threw off the blanket and stormed back into the hallway.

  Was it his imagination, or had Rachel's cries increased in volume? They seemed to be rattling the very fillings in his teeth. He could certainly feel them vibrating in his chest.

  What had he ever done to deserve this?

  If he had any brains in his head, he would just turn around and walk away again. Or better yet, get in his car and—

  What was he thinking? That would be abandonment. And Rachel had already been abandoned once in her young life. Nobody deserved that.

  Feeling like a condemned man who was damned no matter what he did, Evan
swung open the door to her room and stumbled over to Rachel's Portacrib in the dark.

  The thought that she needed a better place to sleep slipped in and out of his head in less time than it took to form the words. Maybe he should look into getting a real crib. Temporarily.

  "Okay, okay, you win. I'm here," he told her, grinding out the words. She howled louder. Chagrined, he lowered his voice. "Shh—shh—shh," he soothed, "it's okay."

  Bending over, he scooped her up, careful to keep one hand beneath her neck, cradling Rachel's head the way Claire had showed him.

  "Hell of a way for the fastest-rising executive at Donovan Digital Incorporated to wind up," he told her, but his voice was soft and there was no animosity. Just stupefied wonder.

  Rachel snuffled, hiccuping before she finally stopped crying. Evan saw the tracks of her tears shining along her cheeks as he brought her into the hallway. Guilt pierced him as cleanly as if it had been wielding a knife.

  She couldn't help crying, he thought. She didn't know any better. At six months or so, Rachel was too young to know how to manipulate a man. Unlike some women.

  He looked down into her face and felt himself smiling. "It's been more than a year since I spent all night in the company of a female. Wouldn't you know, it has to be someone who's small enough to fit into my sink."

  Evan could have sworn Rachel smiled at him. Maybe it was just gas. He tucked her against his shoulder. And then he felt something, something that wasn't damp for a change, spreading out along his chest, laying claim to his heart.

  Shrugging, he tried to ignore it as he walked downstairs and into the living room. Resigning himself to his ordeal, Evan turned on the stereo. He might as well listen to music as he paced.

  Claire woke with a start.

  Pulling her clock over, she held it as she waited for her eyes to focus. It was nearly six. She'd overslept, she thought, putting the clock down again. Since she was ac-customed to rising at five, anything beyond that felt like sleeping in. And felt sinfully indulgent.

  Claire stretched, and then it dawned on her. Evan hadn't called. She had expected the telephone to be ringing off the hook all night, and he hadn't called. Not once.

  Swinging her legs off the bed, she picked up the telephone. There was a dial tone. Concerned, she checked the button on the side, but the ringer was on. If anyone had called, she would have heard it.

  Which meant that Evan hadn't called.

  Now she was really worried. She should have never left him alone with Rachel. God only knew what had happened there last night. Any scenarios she called up, Claire aban-doned half-formed. It was a lot better not to second-guess in this case.

  Claire got dressed as quickly as possible. It took a little longer to do the same for Libby. The little girl, who was always fully awake the instant her eyes opened, wiggled with excitement as she anticipated seeing Rachel again. Claire chatted nonsense with her, not wanting to alarm Libby needlessly. It was bad enough that she was worried.

  "Will it be our turn to have Rachel tonight?" Libby pressed eagerly as Claire tied her sneakers. "He got to play with her last night."

  Claire could just hear Evan's reaction to Libby's assessment of what he had gone through. "I don't think he'd call it playing, Lib."

  Throwing a jacket around Libby's shoulders to ward off the November cold, Claire didn't bother grabbing anything for herself. Her agitation was keeping her warm enough. With Libby leading the way, she hurried out of the house and cut across the driveways.

  If anything had happened to Rachel, it would be all her fault, she thought, ringing the bell.

  There was no answer.

  She tried again, leaning on the bell. Nothing.

  Claire felt a tightness in her throat as she urgently pressed her thumb against the tiny white button a third time.

  The door finally opened just as Claire was debating forcing open a window.

  She caught herself staring. Evan Quartermain looked like hell. His hair, which had always been so perfectly combed, with each hair in place, was mussed as if he'd been wrestling—and lost. It hung in his eyes, giving him a little-boy look. A very lost, disheveled little boy.

  There were stains on both shoulders of his expensive salmon-colored shirt, as well as stains trailing down one sleeve and across the front. The shirt was pulled out of his gray trousers, which, after putting up a good fight, had surrendered their razor-sharp creases. They were as rumpled as anything that might have been pulled off a clearance rack at a discount store.

  It looked as if he had been in a fight, and she knew who the victor had been. It was difficult keeping the grin off her face, but she managed. Mostly. "You slept in your clothes?"

  "Who slept? She's worse than that mechanical bunny." Stepping back, Evan continued rocking Rachel against him. By now, it was an ingrained, automatic motion. He sighed. "She's even got more energy than your kid."

  Libby, whom Claire had barely managed to restrain from bouncing into his house, now stood in awe of the disheveled man in the doorway. She hung on to Claire's jeans as she looked up at him.

  He was a pretty frightening sight, Claire thought. And rather endearing for all that. He seemed...more real now.

  Claire closed the door he had left standing open. "You look like you had a hell of a night."

  He blinked. The sunlight in the room registered for the first time. He'd been in a dense fog for the past couple of hours. Maybe more.

  "You mean it's morning?"

  This time, she did laugh. "Yes, you made it. You spent the night in the haunted castle and you survived." He looked as if he was going to drop at any minute. She had visions of him flattening Rachel. "Here," she said, holding out her hands, "let me take her."

  It felt as if half his brain had shut down. Evan stared first at Claire, then down at himself and the baby he held against him. "I'm not sure my arms can open anymore."

  And here she thought he couldn't exaggerate. Shaking her head, Claire slowly made the transfer, taking Rachel from him. She automatically cupped her hand around the baby's bottom.

  "Hey, dry." She looked at Evan. "I'm impressed."

  His eyes kept insisting on closing. He had to struggle to keep them open. "And I'm running on empty." He had something to tell her. What was it? That thoughts of her mouth had haunted him all night? No, that wasn't it. Although they had. Dry, she'd said something about dry. Diapers, that was it Diapers. "There aren't any diapers left She used them all."

  It was to be expected. "I've got one more box in my car."

  He grinned as if she'd just said his stock had split "You're a saint"

  "Wow, you are punchy." Claire hooked one arm through his, still holding Rachel. "C'mon, let's put you to bed."

  Evan took a deep, fortifying breath before trying to make his feet work. He stumbled after her. "Is that an offer?"

  When he heard them, he had no idea where the words had come from. Maybe he was even hallucinating them.

  He'd thought about it enough during the night. Finding out what it would be like having her in bed with him, yielding to him instead of sparring with him.

  Claire faltered, recovering almost instantly. My, my, but still waters did run deep.

  "No, that's an order," she replied calmly. One step at a time, she pulled him up the stairs. "You know, the things I'm good at giving." Finally on the landing, she looked around. "This way?" she guessed, nodding toward the right.

  His legs were no longer functioning. He wasn't even sure if he felt them. "Just leave me here—I can stretch out on the floor."

  She laughed, tugging on his arm. The door to the room she'd indicated was standing open. She was right; it was his. And it was in a state of complete chaos, which meant it matched the rest of the house.

  "It's not that bad," she told him.

  Her denial was like a final rallying cry. Evan drew himself up. "Want to bet? I didn't have any sleep last night. Or the night before, either. At least, not much."

  It felt as if he'd always been awa
ke. Always stumbling through life.

  Very gently, she led him to his bed. The blanket was a mess. For the time being, she pushed it to one side. "Welcome to parenthood."

  "But she's not—" It was a feeble protest that died before it was completed.

  "I know, I know." Exerting very little force, she pushed him onto the bed. He collapsed like a tower of limp laundry. "Shut up and get some sleep."

  His eyes were already shutting again. "You'll be here when I wake up?" he mumbled.

  From somewhere in the distance, her voice floated back to him. "I'll be here when you wake up. This was the slack I was talking about."

  He didn't have any strength to say another word, or even to rue the fact that he'd been laid low by someone who weighed less than his television set. He hardly ever talked in his sleep.

  Chapter Six

  It curled around him slowly, nudging him to consciousness bit by bit. The scent of coffee mixed with the fragrance of spring.

  Vaguely, Evan remembered that it wasn't spring. Halloween and strangely dressed children with pumpkins and pillowcases, begging for candy, had gone by. It was fall, almost winter.

  Increments of facts sprinkled through his brain like light morning drizzle, melding with the scent. But it was the sound that woke him.

  Or rather, the lack of it.

  There was no buzzing in his ears, no persistent wailing.

  Evan opened his eyes, listening, wondering if it had all been just a bad dream. The baby, the mess, the sleepless night. Just a bad dream.

  And then he looked down at his rumpled clothes and knew that it wasn't. It was all too real. Someone had left him a baby and called him a father. And the blonde next door had abandoned him.

  With a sigh that was one part weariness and two parts resignation, Evan sat up and dragged both hands through his hair, trying to come to. There was no doubt in his mind that this was what it felt like to be run over by an eighteen- wheeler. And there was this odd taste in his mouth, as if he'd been chewing on old sweat socks that had long since been forgotten in the bottom of a laundry hamper.

  The smell of coffee and spring persisted. He saw no reason for either. If anything, his room should have smelled like a compost heap.