If daring to say the word didn’t quite produce the miracle she’d hoped for, what happened next came pretty close. As if he’d finally come home, the baby uttered a long, quivering sigh and nuzzled the side of her neck.
Yet again that night, but for vastly different reasons, she felt as if she’d inadvertently touched a live electric wire. The impact of that blindly seeking little mouth rooting against her skin rocked her to the soul. She’d read about women being tigresses when it came to protecting their young, but she’d never expected to experience the feeling firsthand with another woman’s baby.
Dear God, she thought, blinking away a sudden haze of tears, is this what they mean when they talk about maternal instinct?
“Hang on, sweetie,” she murmured, searching through the items stacked on the shelves of the infant change table. “As soon as I find what I need here, we’ll be in business.”
There were doll-size undershirts, terry-cloth sleepers, a stack of disposable diapers and a bewildering array of accessories to choose from, everything from powder to cream to a carton of little damp towelettes. By the time she’d collected the bare essentials, the baby had grown tired of trying to milk nourishment out of her neck and was giving vent to his annoyance.
“Hush, Squirt,” she whispered, popping a pacifier in his mouth and stealing downstairs with him. “Things can only get better from here on in.”
In fact, they grew worse. The diaper was prefolded in such a way that she put it on inside out and realized her mistake only when she tried to fasten the adhesive tabs. Frustrated, she started over, but by the time she had him clean and ready to eat, the baby was beside himself.
“We need a rocking chair,” she said, parking herself on one of the stools at the breakfast bar and offering him his bottle. “One of those big old things with fat cushions and a high back so that we can be comfortable while we do this. We’ll get your daddy onto it first thing in the morning. And we can’t go on calling you Squirt forever. We’ve got to come up with a better name for you, something nice and strong that will still fit when you’re all grown up.”
But he’d grown tired of listening to her babble, or else she wasn’t holding him right. Why else was he refusing to take the bottle and letting out little cries of distress?
Settling him in the crook of her other arm, she tried again, all the while nattering on as if he understood every word. “You already have the best daddy in the world, you know, and I’ll try to be the best mommy. Even if I have other babies later on, I promise I’ll never make you feel left out or different. You’ll be their big brother, the one they all look up to.”
But the chatter intended to soothe him, and the milk that should have assuaged his hunger pangs weren’t working. Instead of growing contented, he thrashed his head from side to side, stiffened his little limbs and refused to take the bottle even though she’d made sure the temperature was just right.
Maybe it was the way she was holding him, scrunched up on her lap and sandwiched between her and the breakfast bar. Maybe if she rocked him a little…
“I know what it is,” she said, jiggling him in her arms as she paced the floor. “Too much has happened to you, too many strangers have come in and out of your life, and you’re scared. But you’re home to stay now, sweetie pie, and you’ll never be abandoned again.”
Still, nothing she did or said worked. Weakly, he pushed away the bottle. When she foolishly tried to force him to taste the milk, he choked on it and what he’d managed to take down came shooting back up again. After he’d regained his breath, he started to cry. Really cry, with real tears puddling down his face.
They were contagious. Desperate to console him, she said, her voice breaking, “I’m new at this, but I’m doing my best, really I am. I’ve never had any practice in the baby department, you know. In fact, yours is the first diaper I’ve ever changed. Is that the trouble? Can you tell I don’t really know what I’m doing?”
He answered with a mighty howl. It didn’t raise the dead, but it brought Ben staggering downstairs wearing nothing but his briefs, and with his hair all awry and his eyes slitted with fatigue.
“Oh, Ben, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!” she wailed, the tears pressing hot behind her eyes because here she was, failing him once more, and so soon after they’d found each other again.
He squinted at the baby. “Don’t take it personally,” he said. “He’s the same with me, most of the time. I guess he knows we’re not really up to speed on this parenting thing.”
“He’s not the same with you,” she said. “I’ve never heard him scream like this when you’re looking after him. I think he knows I tried to ignore him at first so now he won’t accept me because he doesn’t trust me.” She sniffled pathetically. “Maybe he never will. Maybe I’m not cut out for motherhood.”
Ben plucked the baby from her arms, parked him in his infant seat on the counter and gave the bottle another try. “Maybe,” he said, snaring her with his free arm and reeling her close, “you’re expecting too much, too soon. Miracles don’t happen overnight, honey.”
That he could still call her “honey,” even when the best she could do was reduce his son to howling rage, and hold her pressed close to his side as he juggled the bottle, gave her new hope.
“How can you tell what a baby needs?” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and inhaling the lovely male, sleep-warm scent of his bare skin. “I changed his diaper and gave him clean jammies before I fed him. What did I miss?”
Laughter rumbled deep in Ben’s chest. “Jammies, Julia?” he inquired. “Good grief, woman, no wonder he’s raising the roof! Don’t you know we men don’t go for that kind of baby talk? We like our language straight up.”
“He’s not a man,” she said, peering anxiously at the child. “He’s just an itty-bitty baby and he was very unhappy with me. Why do you think he throws up so much?”
“I don’t know,” Ben said, dropping a slow, sweet kiss on her mouth. “But when I spoke to Marian earlier, she said that—”
A second before, Julia had been suffused with warmth and optimism. But the words he so casually dropped chilled her to the bone. Images of Marian Dawes came to mind. Pretty, petite Marian; helpless, clinging Marian, too weak to stand on her own two feet and willing to settle for any kind of marriage rather than no marriage at all. Willing to give up her infant son for a man who was, at best, an unfeeling brute.
Why was she in touch with Ben now? Had the deal she’d brokered with her bullying husband turned sour so soon? Was she regretting giving up her baby for him?
It was the kitten business all over again. Just when she let her guard down, the thing Julia most yearned for was about to be snatched away from her. “You spoke to Marian?” she said, striving for calm. “Did she call you?”
If he hadn’t noticed the way she stiffened in his embrace, then stepped away from him, surely he heard the touch-me-not tone in her voice? But lifting the baby out of the seat and hoisting him on his shoulder, Ben said easily, “No. I phoned her.”
“When?” she said, sidling behind the other side of the breakfast bar before she forgot herself and went to pull his hair out by the roots.
“Earlier this evening, while you were out.”
“You phoned her? And then you made love to me?”
“I don’t see the connection between the two, Julia.”
His sudden watchfulness, and the way he paced his answer, with a clearly defined pause between each word, were a warning in themselves to watch how she responded, but she was long past caring. “My point exactly, Benjamin! There shouldn’t be any connection. She belongs in the past. At least, that’s what you gave me to understand when you begged me not to walk out on our wedding. So why would you deliberately invite her into our lives now?”
“Because I needed advice. You might not have noticed until tonight that this child isn’t your average happy baby, but I’ve been wrestling with the knowledge for nearly a week. And as his father, I am concerned
.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’d turn to Marian Dawes.”
“It doesn’t? I’d have thought it was obvious. She’s his mother.”
She’s his mother…!
And you, Julia, will never be more than a substitute, no matter how much you try to fool yourself into believing otherwise!
“And you’d give credence to the opinion of a woman who turned her back on her own baby? Come on, Ben, you can surely do better than that! What’s the real reason you wanted to talk to your former mistress?”
“Well, until tonight, you hadn’t shown any interest in him, so who do you suggest I should have turned to? Your mother?” He snorted derisively. “Hell, I’d as soon put my faith in a rabid pit bull!”
“You could have asked my grandmother.”
“No, I couldn’t. Because doing so would have revealed how little support I was getting from you and I’m too fond of Felicity to want to be the one to destroy her illusions about her only grandchild.”
“Are you suggesting—?”
“What I’m suggesting,” he said wearily, “is that we can this conversation right now before we both wind up saying things we’ll live to regret. I’m tired, you’re tired and God knows this baby should be tired. So let’s put the matter on hold until we’ve all had some rest.”
And without giving her the chance to argue the point, he turned and walked out of the room. She had never felt more lonely in her life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE had not thought she’d so soon pass yet another sleepless night. Even less had she imagined it would take place in the guest room. But when she finally followed Ben upstairs, the door to the master suite was closed and it took more stamina than she possessed to intrude on its lone occupant, even if he was now her husband in every sense of the word.
The baby stirred as she passed by the nursery. Tiptoeing to the crib, she stooped to twitch the satinbound quilt in place and stroked her hand over his face and head. His hair was damp with sweat and he seemed warmer than she’d have thought was normal.
Had she judged Ben too harshly? Was there something more wrong with this little mite than a bad case of colic or whatever it was that had him drawing his knees up to his stomach so often? Were the bruises his father had noticed an indication of a more serious condition?
A thread of fear rippled up her spine. Babies weren’t any different from other people. Dreadful illness could strike without warning. They could die.
He whimpered in his sleep and sucked fiercely on his pacifier, and she knew a sudden need to pick him up and hold him close, as much to ward off any hovering evil as to let him know that all the anger she’d spewed out in the kitchen hadn’t been directed at him.
But she hated to disturb him so she touched her fingertip to the petal-soft skin of his cheek instead. “I could so easily fall in love with you, if I dared,” she whispered, a sudden tear spilling down her face and splashing onto his. “But it’s not that simple, you see.”
“Yes, it is,” Ben said, and she spun around to find him standing behind her. “It’s every bit as simple as that, Julia. All you have to do is stop fighting and let it happen.”
As flustered as if she’d been caught stealing, she snatched back her hand and straightened. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he said. “And even if I had been, the monitor beside the bed is so sensitive that I can hear him breathing. I knew the minute you came in here.”
He yawned and shook his head vigorously, as if doing that would be enough to bring the rest of his six feet plus fully alert. Coming to stand beside her, he looked down at his son. “How’s he doing?”
“Well, he’s sleeping. I guess that’s a good sign. But if he were my child—”
“He is your child, Julia, if you want him to be.”
“No,” she said. “He’s Marian’s. You said so yourself not half an hour ago.” Then, seeing the way his mouth tightened and his chest rose in an impatient sigh, she hurried on, “But if he were mine, I’d be taking him to a doctor for a thorough checkup.”
“I’m way ahead of you. I’ve got an appointment with a pediatrician first thing Monday morning.”
“That’s a long time to wait, especially if there’s something really wrong with him.”
“I know. That’s why I phoned Marian. I figured that if she hadn’t noticed anything in the month that he was with her, whatever’s bugging him now probably isn’t too serious.”
“Well then,” she said, turning away from the crib, “if you and she are in agreement about how you should handle matters, what I think is neither here nor there, is it?”
He caught up with her just outside the door and she knew from his firm grasp on her elbow that the conversation was far from over. “You’re being very silly about this Marian business, you know,” he said, as if he were talking to a four-year-old.
“And you’re being unbelievably obtuse if you can’t understand that the last name I want to hear coming out of your mouth is Marian Dawes! Isn’t it enough that there are three of us on this so-called honeymoon, without your inviting a fourth along, as well?”
“That’s a bit over the top, even for you, Julia.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, rounding on him. “The woman’s been in my face practically from the minute you and I said our ‘I do’s.’ And just when I thought we might be getting past at least some of the misery she’s caused, you have to bring her back to center stage with a phone call—and even worse, do it while my back’s turned.”
“What would you have preferred? That I waited until you decided to show up again, and make it a conference call?”
“That kind of sarcasm is uncalled for.”
Arms folded, he rocked back and forth on his heels. The look in his eyes was that of a stranger. “You’re right,” he said. “On every count. I’m a schmuck, she’s a bitch and you’re a saint. So what do I have to do to set things right, Julia? Have her arrested and thrown in jail? Walk over hot coals? Wear a hair shirt?”
“How can you be so blind?” she cried, the confounded tears spurting forth again. It seemed to her that she’d cried more in the last week than she had in her previous twenty-three years. Was there never to be an end to it? “Can’t you see that I’m scared of her? She’s given you a son. She’s a big part of your past. And she’s a fool because she left you for a jerk who’ll end up breaking her heart and probably her spirit, too. And when that happens, she’s likely to decide she wants both her baby and his father back in her life.”
She dashed away the tears and gave an almighty sniff. “When you asked me to marry you, I assumed it was because you felt the same way I did—that you couldn’t live without me. I never expected I’d feel redundant before I’d even taken off my wedding dress!”
She wouldn’t have believed that in baring her deepest fears, she’d move him so profoundly, both literally and figuratively. Before she could catch her breath, he’d snatched her up and was carrying her into the bedroom, their bedroom, and was murmuring into her hair—lovely, healing things, like, “Sweetheart, I’m sorry…. I’m an ass…. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Don’t ever think I’d leave you—not for Marian, not for any woman…it’ll never happen. I give you my solemn promise it’ll never happen.”
“But what if she put you in the position of having to choose between keeping the baby or being with me?” she sobbed, able at last to air every last ghost that had haunted her so relentlessly over the past week.
“It’ll never happen,” he said again, tipping her face up to his and mopping up her tears with tiny, tender kisses. “I won’t let it. How can I make you believe that?”
“Keep her away from us,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder. “I’m trying to build the happy family you want, Ben, but it’s not easy. Asking me to accept your baby’s one thing, but to expect me to welcome his mother into our lives is too much. Promise me you won’t let her come anywhere near us, ever again.”
“I don’t know if I can live with that kind of uncertainty hanging over my head all the time,” she said.
He sandwiched her hands between his and squeezed them. “Honey,” he said, “in light of everything that’s gone down in the last few days, I know I’m asking a lot when I say please trust me to handle this. Marian’s made some pretty major mistakes, no doubt about it, but she’s basically decent and I don’t think she’s going to be a problem, at least nothing that you and I can’t deal with as long as we stick together. But you’re right. She’s made a pact with the devil and his name’s Wayne Dawes. In light of what we already know about him, not to mention what I suspect, I’m taking steps to make sure there’s not the slightest chance he’ll ever be an influence in my son’s life.”
He sounded so confident, so in charge, that she wanted to believe him. “What kind of steps?”
“I’m suing for full legal custody of the baby. Given her attachment to Dawes, I don’t imagine Marian’s going to fight me on it, but until the papers have been signed, I’m not about to do anything to stir things up between us. Sole custody isn’t often granted these days. In the interests of the child, it’s usually shared between both parents. But in this case, I want the courts to look favorably on both you and me to the point that there’s no question but that we are what’s best for that little boy.”
“And what if she won’t agree to give you sole legal custody? What if she wants visitation rights and shows up on our doorstep whenever the spirit moves her?” The specter of Marian Dawes being a permanent fixture in their lives was enough to start her weeping again. “What if—?”
He reached over to a box of tissues on the bedside table and tugged a fistful free to dab at her tears. “Honey,” he said, “I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I’m working on them. Right now, though, I’m beat and so are you. Please let’s call it a day and talk about this again when we’ve had some rest. Things always look better in the morning.”
The Unexpected Wedding Gift Page 9
