Be My Baby

by Holly Jacobs

  She was head-over-heels in love with the baby. It was there in the softness that crept into her voice every time she said Katie’s name.

  For a moment he had a fleeting desire to hear her say his name with the same sort of softness, instead of the annoyance that generally accented his name from her lips.

  “Still,” he said, “I can’t thank you enough. And I’d like to make it up to you.”

  “How?” Mia asked.

  “Come have dinner with Katie and me. She missed you last night.”

  “Larry, I don’t know,” she sounded uncertain.

  His name wasn’t quite tinged with the same softness she said Katie with, but it wasn’t infused with her normal dose of annoyance. Just confusion.

  That was good, because Mac was confused as hell himself. Between work and Katie, he didn’t have time to try and figure out what was disturbing him.

  All he knew was he wanted to spend the evening with Mia. The feeling went almost beyond want into a more intense territory. He needed to spend time with her.

  He wasn’t going to analyze or weigh the need. It was just there. He was going to accept it.

  Mia was still silent.

  “Do you have a date?” he asked, an unfamiliar twisting in his gut as he asked.

  “No.”

  Mac let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding at her answer.

  He smiled as he asked, “Some prior commitment then? A dinner with some Hollywood boy-toy…I wouldn’t mind coming second-fiddle to something like that.”

  She grinned then said, “No. No Hollywood boy-toys this week. But I’m sure one will be calling any time now.”

  Mac laughed. “So you like boy-toys?”

  “To be honest, I like real men, not boys…toys or otherwise.”

  Mac grinned. “I don’t think I qualify as boyish, and I know it’s not that I intimidate you. Other people maybe, but never you. And I know you adore Katie. So, why would you pass up a free dinner? Pizza, with everything.”

  Her smile evaporated.

  “The kiss,” she said softly.

  “What kiss?” Mac said, feigning confusion.

  Truth be told, that kiss was all he’d thought about after dropping her off.

  Why had he kissed Mia Gallagher?

  He didn’t like her. She was a constant thorn in his side. The reason he was inviting her out tonight—the reason she’d been on his mind so much—must be that he owed her big for all her help with Katie. First this weekend, now today.

  Yeah, that must be why.

  “Gratitude,” he said. “It was just a small thank-you gesture. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “So, you thank every woman who helps you by sticking your tongue down her throat?” she asked.

  There was a hint of the old Mia, the one who was never afraid to call him on the carpet, in that tone.

  “It was little more than a peck. Come on, Mia, it was just a small kiss. If I ever really kiss you, you’ll know it.”

  “Kiss?” Donovan said, as he walked into the entryway.

  Mia jumped, as if caught in a compromising situation.

  “Who’s kissing whom?” Donovan asked.

  “Me,” she said hurriedly. “Kissing Katie. Larry here’s afraid I’ll give her germs.”

  “I may not be a baby expert,” Donovan said, “but I think Katie will survive a few germs. At least I hope so. I think half the office kissed her at one time or another today.”

  Germs?

  Mac hadn’t thought about germs. What would happen if Katie got sick?

  His stomach clenched.

  “Maybe I better make an appointment with a pediatrician, just in case,” he said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. She should be checked out. What if something’s wrong with her and we don’t know it?”

  “Mac, she looks pretty healthy to me,” Mia said soothingly.

  “Looks can be deceiving. Maybe I should call Brigitta. Her kids are sick, which means she must know a good doctor. Do you think they’d get me in tonight?”

  “It’s awfully late,” Donovan said.

  “Or, there’s Louisa at The Chocolate Bar, her husband’s a doctor,” Mia offered. “He works at the E.R. and probably sees a ton of kids there. Bet we could ask him to stop over and take a look at her. Want me to call? I’d feel better getting her a clean bill of health, although I still maintain babies need kisses, germs or no germs.”

  Mac could see she wanted the baby checked out as much as he did. But he also noticed she was still sticking to the kissing-baby cover story in hopes Donovan didn’t catch onto the fact she’d been kissing him.

  And Mac had been kissing her.

  He still wasn’t sure why, but he was sure he’d very much like to kiss Mia Gallagher again.

  But first they had to see to Katie.

  “Yes, why don’t you call him and see if Joe will come give Katie a once-over. Call him, okay?”

  “I’ll do it now,” Mia said, already pulling out the phone book.

  “Can Katie stay here while I run up to my office?” Mac asked.

  “Sure. Oh, you had a delivery. I put it on your desk.”

  It had come. He couldn’t resist a smile at the thought.

  “Thanks,” he said. He hurried up the stairs to his office and realized they never settled the dinner discussion. Damn.

  Donovan caught up to him at the top of the stairs. “So, you kissed Mia, huh?”

  Mac turned to him sharply. “What on earth makes you say that?”

  Donovan didn’t reply, just stared at him, waiting for an answer.

  Mac sighed. “Yeah, I kissed her. I don’t know why she’s making so much of it. You either. It was just a thank-you for all the help she gave me this weekend. I don’t know what I would have done without her then, or today for that matter.”

  And since he’d started a tradition of kissing Mia as thanks, he probably owed her another kiss for her help today.

  It was a pleasant thought. It shouldn’t be, but it was.

  “So, you kiss everyone you thank?” Donovan asked. “I helped you out on that Roger’s case and you never kissed me.”

  He chuckled as he puckered his lips.

  Mac slugged him lightly on the arm. “And you can be sure I’m never going to.”

  “Sarah will be relieved.” Donovan stopped laughing and asked, “So, are you going to kiss her again?”

  “The baby?” Mac asked.

  “Amelia.”

  “Mia,” Mac corrected. “She’s going by Mia now. And Mia obviously takes a small peck on the cheek way too seriously,” he tried to explain, not really answering Donovan’s question. After all, he’d just been thinking about kissing Mia as a thank-you for today’s help.

  “That’s all it was, a small peck on the cheek? That’s not what it sounded like to me.”

  “Okay so it wasn’t her cheek, but it wasn’t serious,” Mac maintained. “Hell, if I ever seriously kiss her, she’ll know.”

  “Okay,” Donovan said as he started down the hall toward his office.

  Mac walked into his and spotted the box on his desk.

  He opened it and smiled.

  Perfect.

  Just what he wanted.

  Dinner with Mac.

  On purpose.

  Mia figured she must be out of her mind.

  She tried to convince herself she’d only said yes because she was hungry. Mac had ordered a pepperoni and mushroom pizza from Teresa’s, one of her favorite delis.

  “Pizza beats cooking any day of the week,” Mia said as she finished her second slice. She glanced at the baby, sleeping in her car seat and wondered how mean it would be to nudge the seat and wake her up.

  Things seemed…more awkward without Katie running interference. After all, there’s no way Mia would be sitting in Mac’s kitchen having dinner with him if it wasn’t for the baby.

  Mac must have felt it too because he looked as if he felt as awkward as she felt.

  “
So, did you make any calls about finding a family for Katie?”

  “No,” he said. “I was tied up at court all day.”

  “I thought maybe you’d done some checking during a break.”

  “No. I called you during breaks.”

  “To check on the baby,” she hurriedly clarified.

  “Yeah. Checking on Katie. There would be no other reason to call you.”

  “Right,” she said. “We don’t have a call-you-on-the-phone sort of relationship.”

  “Yes. What we have is a…partnership. We’re working together for Katie’s sake.”

  “Yes,” Mia said with relief that they’d clarified what they had. “The baby. Nothing else.”

  They lapsed into an awkward silence as they finished the pizza.

  Katie still slept, blissfully unaware of the tension that radiated between the adults.

  “I have to go get something from the car,” Mac said abruptly as he finished his dinner.

  “No problem,” she said, relieved for a brief respite. “I’ll clean this up. Maybe Katie will wake up and I can help with her bath before I go home.”

  She busied herself around the kitchen, making herself at home. She was just wiping off the table when Mac came in carrying a large box.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting it at her and looking uncomfortable. “This is for you.”

  “For me?”

  “I wanted to do something to thank you for jumping in and helping me with the baby. You didn’t have to, but you did. Not just over the weekend, but today.”

  She just stood there gaping. “You didn’t have to…I mean…”

  “Just open it. I called Sarah and she said this should be okay, size-wise.”

  Mia set the box down on the table and opened it slowly. It was black…a coat. She pulled it from the box. A long, wool coat. Soft. Thick. Definitely warmer—much warmer—than her old one.

  “Listen,” he said, “I know you. You’re going to get all huffy, especially since I made cracks about your layered look. But I didn’t mean buying the coat as an insult. I just knew it was something you could use and I wanted to thank you and,” he paused and then said, “sale. It was on sale, so—”

  “Mac, I’m not going to get mad. This was—” she paused, stroking one hand down the fabric “—it was kind and thoughtful. Those are two words I never thought I’d use to describe you, but I guess I’ve discovered there’s a lot about you I didn’t know.”

  “So, are you going to just stand there holding it, or are you going to try it on?” he asked, his voice gruff, his expression flustered, as if he didn’t know what to make of her compliment.

  Mia hoped he didn’t, because she didn’t know what to make of it…what to make of all the new things she was learning about Mac.

  “If it’s not the right size the clerk said you can exchange it, but like I said, I called Sarah and she said it should work.”

  He took it from her hand and held it out for her to slip on.

  Mia slipped her arms through the sleeves. The coat fit perfectly. And fell to her knees.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “I wasn’t going for beautiful. I was going for warm.”

  “Well, it’s both. You didn’t have to, but thank you.” She leaned up and before she knew what she was doing, she’d kissed his cheek.

  Now she was the one who felt as flustered as he had looked.

  She started to back away, but Mac stopped her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, his voice soft and low. “Mia, I—”

  She didn’t let him finish. She knew what he wanted, and though she wasn’t sure why, she wanted it as well, so she moved forward and kissed him again. Not on his cheek, but firmly on his lips.

  She meant it to be a quick kiss, just enough to shake this odd longing from her system. But quick wasn’t in the cards.

  The kiss lingered, then deepened.

  Mac’s arms tightened around her, pulling her close. And suddenly the coat was too much of a barrier.

  Anything that separated her from him was too much. She wanted to be closer, to feel the heat of his body radiate into hers. She wanted to absorb it, to hold it.

  She wanted—

  The doorbell rang and she backed away, feeling stunned.

  Mac swore. “Who could that be?”

  It took a moment for her to order her thoughts.

  “Maybe Joe? He was supposed to stop, remember?” Her voice sounded breathless, as if she’d just run a race.

  “Well, let me just say, he has crappy timing,” Mac grumbled as he released her.

  Mia stepped away, putting distance between them. “Or maybe good timing. I don’t know what we were doing.”

  The bell rang again and Katie stirred, looked around and started to fuss.

  “Remind me and I’ll give you an explanation of just what we were doing and what it might have led to later.”

  Mia slid off the coat, running her hand across the soft fabric one more time before she hurried to get the baby.

  She wasn’t about to ask for the explanation Mac had offered. She wouldn’t need it because she wasn’t about to kiss him again. She had plans, a future. And though kissing Mac might be a pleasant diversion, she knew there was no future in it.

  She knew she shouldn’t allow it to happen again.

  She knew there was nothing she wanted more.

  Chapter Six

  It wasn’t just Joe Delacamp at the door. The new E.R. doctor, had brought his wife.

  Louisa Delacamp was rather new to the Square as well. She owned The Chocolate Bar, a sweet shop. Louisa herself had a sweetness about her that had nothing to do with the chocolate she sold and everything to do with her true nature.

  The Square had adopted her as one of their own from the day she moved onto it.

  The dark-haired doctor and his redheaded wife radiated the same type of happiness Donovan and Sarah, and Josh Gardner and his wife Libby did.

  It was enough to make a confirmed bachelor like Mac cower in his boots. But Mac knew there was no way he would ever fall victim to the marriage curse. He was immune.

  “I heard the word baby and invited myself,” Louisa said as she brushed passed Mac and made a bee-line toward Mia and Katie.

  “Amelia?” she said. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “Mia,” Mac corrected Louisa.

  He smiled as he said her name. Yes, she was definitely more a Mia than an Amelia. He wondered how he’d missed that before. Maybe he’d been too busy annoying her to notice her true nature. But he noticed now.

  She gave him a look—one that Mac had no trouble reading as a butt-out look.

  “Hi, Louisa,” Mia said. “I’m just here…helping out. You know men, they can be clueless when it comes to babies. And since Mac is habitually clueless, you can imagine how much I worry about him alone with Katie.”

  Mac should have been insulted. After all, he’d handled Katie’s care as well as Mia had. But instead, he grinned at her, which made her scowl.

  She was trying to reestablish their old trading-barbs relationship. He suspected it was a defense mechanism. Why would she feel the need to be defensive?

  THE KISS.

  Not just one kiss anymore, he reminded himself.

  Kisses.

  He’d exchanged kisses with Mia, and the idea of multiple kisses bothered her so much that she was going on the defensive.

  He smiled even broader and she scowled even harder.

  “Hey, you two,” Joe said. “Donovan’s not here to call a time-out, so I guess it’s up to me. I can’t imagine how the two of you manage without a referee.”

  “I just bet you can’t imagine how we manage it,” Mac said. “Want me to tell you?”

  “No,” Mia said hastily. “Joe doesn’t want to hear about our tempestuous relationship. He’s here to do us a favor and check out Katie.”

  “May I hold her?” Louisa asked.

&n
bsp; “Sure,” Mia said, handing the wriggling baby over to Louisa.

  “Isn’t she precious. I hope ours is a girl,” she murmured to Joe.

  “Yours?” Mia asked. “Is there something you want to share?”

  Louisa had slipped quietly into the rhythm of the Square, never making waves, as she seamlessly fit herself, her son and her surrogate father, Elmer, into the fabric of the neighborhood.

  But last year, she hadn’t just made waves, she’d created a tsunami when Joe Delacamp came back into her life to reclaim a son he never knew he had…and soon thereafter reclaimed Louisa, too.

  “Well,” Louisa said slowly, looking to Joe who smiled and nodded. “We haven’t told anyone yet, but we’re going to have a baby. I’m only a couple months along.” Her hand drifted to her still flat stomach. She caressed it gently.

  “Aaron is beside himself with excitement,” Joe blurted. “He can’t wait to be a big brother.”

  “Congratulations,” Mia said, hugging Louisa, catching Katie up in between them.

  “Congratulations,” Mac told Joe as he slapped him on the back. “How are you handling it?”

  “Scared to death,” Joe said. “I never planned on having kids, never imagined the possibility. But then I found out about Aaron and now, with this baby? I’m sure you know how it can be overwhelming and yet, invigorating, what with having Katie.”

  “No,” Mac said. “Not the same thing at all. Katie’s not really mine, just temporarily my responsibility. It’s not the same thing as having one of your own.”

  Mac saw Mia give him a sad look as he said the words.

  The same look she gave him every time he mentioned finding Katie a real family.

  He hated that look.

  He preferred having Mia bluster and trade barbs with him. That sad, resigned look left him feeling as if he’d disappointed her. But she had no call to have expectations about him, which meant there was no way he could disappoint her.

  Suddenly all business, Joe said, “So, let’s do a quick checkup then.”

  In short order Joe had proclaimed Katie a healthy, happy baby.

  Mac felt relief flood through his system. He hadn’t realized he was that worried there was something wrong with her.

  “You’ll need to find out if she’s up-to-date on her immunizations.”