Hush, Little Baby

by Judith Arnold

  As soon as she left and Levi took over, D.J. would invariably lapse into rambunctious behavior. Levi would give D.J. teething toys to chew on, prepare some boiled mashed carrots or pureed bananas for the kid—in the Daddy School, Allison Winslow had explained how easy it was to make fresh baby food, and he was giving it a try—change D.J.’s diapers, bathe him and try to quiet him down for the night. Through it all D.J. would gurgle and babble and kick and pull at him. He’d splash water out of the tub, pee the instant Levi fastened a fresh diaper onto him, spit up fluids tinted orange from the mashed carrots he’d eaten. And Levi would wonder how he could possibly miss such a monster.

  Rick was relating a joke one of the guys had told him over lunch, something involving a variety of religious leaders in a bar, and Levi tried to pay attention, laughing when he sensed Rick had reached the punch line. But his mind was elsewhere. At least the part of his mind possessed by D.J. was.

  The sound of a car steering along the dirt path from the road caught his attention. Rick must have heard it, too, because he spun around and squinted at the approaching car. “This seems to be the hot spot today,” he muttered. “We were just getting ready to pack it in, and now we’ve got more company.”

  “If you’re finished, go,” Levi urged him. “Tell the guys to have a good weekend.” He returned his gaze to the car. As the low-riding sun slid light across the windshield, the driver turned into nothing but a shadow. But the car kept coming, veering slightly so the glare vanished from the windshield, and then he recognized the driver.

  What was Corinne Lanier doing here? Had she come back to continue their debate about the house’s design? Had she finally realized that while she’d won a few battles, he’d won the war last week, and he was going to build a magnificent house over her petty objections?

  And why, even though he suspected she had returned to Arlington only to hassle him, did a weight seem to lift off his back as she drew near, a cloud seem to glide from directly above him to the horizon and beyond? Why did those phantom pains hurt a little less?

  “Do you know who that is?” Rick asked, shielding his eyes with his hand in an effort to identify the woman behind the wheel.

  “She works for the guy who’s buying this house.”

  “Oh, great.” Rick pulled a face. “Don’t tell me she’s going to be here all the time, micromanaging the job.”

  “She won’t.” Levi could offer no basis for that conclusion, but he sensed it in his gut that she hadn’t come to Arlington to interfere with the work crew. If she was going to get in anyone’s way, it would be his, not Rick’s. “Don’t worry about her. I can handle her.” Right. He could really handle a woman with her brains, her determination…her big hazel eyes and her long legs.

  He remembered that brief kiss they’d exchanged in his office last week. Actually, they hadn’t exactly exchanged it. He’d taken it, and she’d given it—without much resistance, he recalled. Maybe she’d come here to take the kiss back.

  He’d gladly give it and more.

  Thinking about kissing her made his phantom pains fade even more. As long as he could become fixated with her merely by watching her through the sheen of light on the car’s windshield, as long as he could be affected by his memory of the shy pressure of her lips beneath his, the silken texture of her hand when he’d touched it and the deceptively delicate quality of her voice, he could believe he was more than just D.J.’s replacement father. He could believe he was actually a normal, healthy man, someone who responded to a woman, someone whose entire life didn’t revolve around a seven-month-old boy.

  She shut off the engine. As the door opened and she swung her legs out of the car, Rick frowned. “You sure you can handle her?”

  Levi slid a glance at him. “Watch me,” he said, hoping he wouldn’t make a fool of himself with Rick as his witness. He smiled, pushed away from his own car, and strode toward her.

  She stood, and he saw right away that her own smile was uneasy, almost apprehensive.

  “Hello, Corinne,” he greeted her smoothly, hand outstretched. “I guess you can’t stay away, can you.”

  Something flickered in her expression, a spark of light illuminating her eyes for a fraction of a second. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe I can’t.”

  She sounded so uncertain, so bewildered, he couldn’t take any pride in the knowledge that he was handling her. “As you can see, some heavy work is going on here. If you want to look around, you’re going to have to wear a hardhat.”

  She peered at his helmet, and for a brief moment her smile looked genuine. “Do you have one in burgundy?” she asked, gesturing toward her tailored skirt.

  His gaze followed her hand, but instead of noticing the color of her skirt, he noticed the limbs that extended below the above-the-knee hem. God, she had sexy legs, the calf muscles strongly curved, the ankles narrow, the knees oval knobs of bone that struck him as absurdly alluring. He’d like to touch her knees, caress them. Kiss them.

  If he kept thinking that way, he wouldn’t be able to handle her at all. “Sorry,” he said. “The hats only come in bright colors for added visibility. Glow-in-the-dark yellow, glow-in-the-dark orange, glow-in-the-dark blue.”

  “Well, then, I guess I won’t look around. What’s that, the foundation?” she asked, pointing to the low walls of concrete imbedded in the ground.

  “The footings. The foundation goes on top of them.”

  “I see.” Her nod told him she didn’t really see, but she’d prefer not to receive a detailed lecture on the subject.

  Rick was still observing them. Levi motioned toward him. “That’s Rick Bailey, the site foreman. Best in the business. He’ll make sure everything’s built the way it’s supposed to be.”

  She eyed the burly man. Rick’s shoulders were small mountains, his chest thick, his waistline showing only a hint of incipient middle-age paunchiness beneath his snug-fitting T-shirt and battered blue jeans. “I’m glad. I mean, Gerald will be glad.”

  Rick nodded and touched his hardhat in a friendly salute, then sauntered back to the center of the action, his thick-soled work boots leaving patterned treads in the soft earth.

  “So, what’s going on?” Levi asked, then realized that wasn’t the most diplomatic way to find out whether she’d come here to see the construction site or him. “I mean, what brings you to Arlington?”

  She considered her answer long enough to convince him it wasn’t a simple one. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I’ve been thinking about the house, and wanting to get out of the city, and… I don’t know.”

  Interesting. Peculiar but definitely interesting. “Do you have plans for dinner?”

  She sighed, such a deep, wistful breath he wanted to give her a reassuring hug. Although damned if he knew what she needed to be reassured about.

  Squaring her shoulders, she gave him a pensive smile. “No, I don’t have plans for dinner.”

  She was free tonight and she’d smiled at him. He saw all sorts of potential in the moment. “Maybe I can rustle up a babysitter and we could go somewhere,” he suggested. With more warning, he would have planned something classy—dinner at Reynaud, for instance. But Arlington’s most elegant restaurant required reservations secured way in advance. No way would he be able to get a table for two there tonight.

  In fact, he’d be lucky to get a baby-sitter. While Tara might be available on short notice on a weeknight, having her sit on a Friday night probably required advance reservations, too.

  “Don’t get a baby-sitter,” she said. “I’d like to see D.J.”

  “You would?” The moment lost a bit of its potential. “I was thinking of dining out.” It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten at a restaurant since D.J. had entered his life. He used to like going to restaurants.

  “Surely there are restaurants babies are allowed to go to,” she said with a smile.

  “McDonald’s,” he suggested.

  “For example.”

  “Not exactl
y gourmet cuisine.”

  “No, but D.J. would fit right in.”

  Levi assessed the situation, his lips pressed together to prevent him from blurting out that an outing to McDonald’s, accompanied by D.J., was not the way he’d choose to spend an evening with Corinne. If the glow in her eyes was anything to go by, dinner with D.J. at Mickey-D’s was exactly the way she’d choose to spend the evening.

  Once again he recalled what his friends had told him, about how certain women were turned on by men who were attached to babies. He’d never have pegged Corinne for that kind of woman. She was single and pretty obviously childless, and she didn’t coo and gush over the kid the way some women might. The night she’d had dinner at his house, she’d held D.J., but she hadn’t talked baby-talk or recited “This Little Piggy” while playing with his toes. She hadn’t pinched his cheek and called him precious.

  Instead, she’d acted as if D.J. was a fascinating inconvenience. She’d looked perplexed but curious as she’d held him, neither welcoming nor objecting to what had obviously been a new experience. Her expression had closely mirrored his emotions when he’d first taken custody of D.J., that vaguely panicked, vaguely awed sense of, “How did I get into this, and what am I supposed to do next?”

  “McDonald’s,” he finally muttered.

  “I’d have to change my clothes, of course. I came here straight from the office—” She cut herself off, her cheeks flushing slightly.

  He contemplated not just her blush but the words that had triggered it. She’d traveled straight to Arlington from her office with no clear objective, at least not anything she was willing to admit to.

  Her tremulous smile was almost enough to make him not care why she was here. Maybe she’d come for the sake of Mosley’s country house. Maybe she wanted to fight him over the kitchen’s glass wall some more, or the fireplace, or she intended to micromanage the construction, as Rick had feared. But Levi didn’t want to believe that. He wanted to believe she’d come to spend time with him.

  Maybe…damn it, maybe she’d come because she wanted to go to McDonald’s with D.J. It made no sense that she’d travel all the way from Manhattan to Arlington just to munch on burgers and fries in an inexpensive family eatery. She could have done that just as easily in her own neighborhood.

  But not with D.J.

  And not with Levi.

  Something was going on with her, something beyond the house and the choice of a restaurant. Whatever it was, Levi was too intrigued to let it go.

  “There are two McDonalds restaurants in Arlington,” he told her. “Also a Burger King, a Wendy’s, a Taco Bell, two Pizza Huts and a dive called Moise’s Fish House that has the best clam chowder in Connecticut. You’re overdressed for all of them.”

  “I’ve got a room at the Arlington Inn,” she said. “I’ll check in and change, and maybe you and D.J. can meet me there. Would D.J. be allowed into that—what was it, Moses? The chowder place.”

  “Moise’s Fish House.” He opened her car door for her. “Go check in and change. D.J. and I will pick you up in forty-five minutes.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice sparkling with earnestness, as if she thought he was doing her a huge favor. Introducing her to the chowder at Moise’s was a huge favor, but subjecting her to another evening with D.J….

  The way she smiled, the way her eyes locked with his for a long, searching moment before she settled into the driver’s seat, made him think that being subjected to another evening with D.J. was her dream come true.

  Chapter Eight

  HE LOVED going in the car. The seat was comfortable—nicely padded but not too soft—and when the man opened a window, great gusts of air blew into his face. But what he loved best were the vibrations, the rumble of motion, the blur beyond the windows, the knowledge that he was going somewhere, having an adventure, moving.

  He loved it. He wished he could sit next to the man, so he could see the world rushing toward him from straight ahead.

  The man’s name was Levi.

  Levi. His special man, like a daddy.

  The new lady who stayed with D.J. was okay. She was much smaller than Levi, but her hands were almost as large as his. They held D.J. with a firm purpose that made him feel both secure and sad. He preferred the way the other woman had held him.

  But she was gone. She left Levi’s office that day and never came back. Instead he had the big-handed woman. She was nice. But she wasn’t the woman he liked best.

  The car was slowing down. He felt the pressure of the straps against his belly and shoulders as his body took an extra second to stop. Levi opened his window and talked to a man in a funny coat and hat who leaned down to so they could look at each other. Levi said something to the man. Then Levi stuffed something into the man’s hand, and the man straightened up and walked away.

  Levi didn’t talk anymore. The car seemed so silent when it wasn’t moving. No wind to listen to, no growl of the engine, no hum of the tires against the road.

  D.J. grew bored waiting for something to happen. Shouldn’t they get out and be somewhere new? He kicked his feet and made some noise, thinking that would remind Levi that things were supposed to happen when he stopped the car and turned off the engine. But he only glanced over his shoulder at D.J., gave him a funny little smile, and reached between the front seats to squeeze D.J.’s foot.

  Suddenly the other door opened and there she was. The woman. The one he liked.

  He smelled her and saw her in the same instant, and it was like his eyes and his body being filled with her all at once. The evening sunlight fell on her hair and made it shimmer. Her shirt was the same color green as his squishy ball.

  The woman smiled at him, and her smile went into him the way her smell did, filling him up from the inside. She reached back and surrounded his hand with hers. Her warmth seeped through him, just the way her smell did, and her smile. He laughed because he was so happy.

  She laughed, too. Maybe she was as happy as he was.

  *

  MOISE’S FISH HOUSE was the sort of eatery a person could feel comfortable bringing a baby into. The floor was a checkerboard of black and white tiles, the walls were washed with faded lemon-yellow paint and decorated with trite seaside scenes in cheap frames, and the tables were draped in blue checked vinyl. The waiter who led Corinne and Levi to a table dragged over a high chair for D.J. before Levi even had to request one.

  Levi strapped D.J. into the wooden seat while Corinne settled into one of the ladder-back chairs beside him. D.J.’s pudgy baby cheeks dimpled as he grinned at her, and his little feet pumped under the table. She was probably projecting her own mood on him, but it seemed as if he was as excited to see her as she was to see him.

  No, she wasn’t excited to see him. Pleased, perhaps. Satisfied. She’d felt excited when she’d seen Levi at the construction site—but that was very different from what she felt seeing D.J.

  What was it with these two males? What strange power did they exert over her? The instant she’d caught sight of Levi, she’d understood the reason she had driven from the car rental outlet directly to the lot where Gerald’s house was being built: because she’d wanted to be with him, and she’d thought he might be there, and while she couldn’t have justified visiting his office, she could justify a stop at the construction site. “I was just curious to see how things were coming along,” she could have said if anyone had asked.

  She’d traveled to Arlington unsure about why she was making the trip, but the moment Levi had loomed into view, a living contradiction in his neat blue shirt, silk tie, impeccably tailored trousers and that hardhat, the reason she’d made the trip had become clear to her, even if she wasn’t quite ready to admit it.

  It was Levi she’d wanted to see, all along. Levi.

  She’d wanted to see D.J., too, of course—and she’d realized that as soon as she’d opened the car door and glimpsed his adorable face, his flying hands and feet, his lively eyes.

  They looked so much like Le
vi’s eyes.

  Gazing at D.J. caused something warm and solid to nestle within the cage of her ribs. When she directed her attention to Levi, seated across the table from her, the warmth in her chest shape-shifted, developing a spininess that pricked and tweaked.

  He was an amazingly sexy man. Even with his kid at his side, even in a casual polo shirt and jeans, his hair mussed from the wind that tangled through it during their drive, he was far sexier than any man had a right to be.

  “Whatever else you get,” he said, passing her one of the laminated menus, “you’ve got to order the clam chowder. It’s incredible.”

  She skimmed the unpretentious menu. “Well, I guess I could get a cup—”

  “A bowl. A cup won’t be enough. Everything else is good, too.”

  “Lee-lee-lee,” D.J. chimed in, drumming his hand on the high chair tray. Corinne handed him her teaspoon, and he let out a delighted giggle. Then he banged the spoon on the tray.

  “Why did you do that?” Levi asked.

  Afraid she’d committed a dreadful mistake, she shot him a look. He appeared not angry but bemused.

  She felt just as bemused. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She hadn’t really thought about it, hadn’t consciously imagined D.J. turning a teaspoon into a drumstick. It had just seemed so natural to give it to him, almost instinctive.

  She turned back to D.J. He’d stopped using the spoon to hit the tray and was sucking on it, rubbing the curved metal over his gums. How would she have known it would soothe his teething pain? How would she know anything about him?

  Why was he gazing at her so intently? Why was Levi gazing at her so intently? Why did she feel as if Manhattan was light-years away, as if the only world that mattered was the world of the Holt men in Arlington, Connecticut?

  “There’s this thing called the Daddy School,” Levi abruptly said.