“Danny, I couldn’t. You’re going to turn me into a blimp.”
“Not a chance, Twigs. Besides, I got this recipe out of that pregnancy book. It’s guaranteed to be low fat.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Danny was the most endearing, the most maddening man she’d ever known. If he was planning to be this attentive clear up to her delivery date, how on earth could she possibly protect her heart?
As if she hadn’t lost it to him years ago and had only just now recognized how foolhardy that had been.
Not wanting him to read her emotions, she said the first thing that popped into her mind. “I thought I’d do some shopping for the baby tomorrow. You know, look at cribs, diaper pails, the basics I’ll need.”
He paled and swallowed visibly. “Sounds good. I’ve got the day off. How ’bout I tag along?”
“You don’t have to,” she said, surprised he’d even consider shopping with her. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily. Besides, given your delicate condition, you’re going to need someone to carry all the stuff you buy.”
Reaching across the table, she took his hand. “It would be nice not to have to shop alone but it’s above and beyond the call of duty for a birthing coach. Like most men, you probably hate shopping anyway.”
He glanced at their hands, his far larger and a shade or two darker than hers. His thumb skimmed over her knuckles, sending a flurry of gooseflesh up her arm.
“Hey, my mom taught me power shopping from an early age. We’ll be in and out in an hour,” he promised.
HE’D MADE IT HOME SAFELY.
Not once had he leaned forward to kiss Stephanie just for the pleasure of tasting her again. Though he’d been sorely tested more than once, tempted to lick a bit of steak sauce from the corner of her lips. Or kiss away the mustache left there by the foamy milk shake.
By sheer force of will, he’d managed not to carry her into the house and make love to her on the kitchen table, knowing full well he wouldn’t have made it as far as the living room this time.
Yep, eating outside on the patio had been a stroke of genius.
Maybe the neighbors hadn’t been watching but the fact they might be had kept him at arm’s length.
Arm’s length and sweating nails, he thought with a grimace as he dropped the leftover dinner fixings onto his own kitchen table. He’d nearly lost it altogether when she’d held his hand. So sweet. So seductive. As hard to resist as going into a smoke-filled room without an air pack when you knew someone needed rescuing.
How many weeks was it until the baby was due? The baby he was beginning to think of in far more personal terms than simply Stephanie’s baby—a baby that meant something important to him, too.
And how the hell was he going to survive however long their time together would be without making love to Stephanie again? At this point, he was the one who needed rescuing from his overactive libido.
He glanced at the stove clock. It was too early to go to bed. And there wasn’t enough cold water in the entire county for the number of showers he’d need to cool his simmering lust so he could sleep.
He’d have to go for a run. A long one.
“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE HER sleep in that pink frilly thing, are you?” Danny was scowling at a white crib lined with Little Bo Peep bumper pads edged with lace, the mattress covered by a matching sheet.
“I am having a girl, you know.”
“Yeah, but this looks so frou-frou. The fire engines would be better.” He pointed out an adjacent crib in a walnut finish.
“Fire engines are for little boys.”
“Better not let your dad hear you being so sexist. Definitely not politically correct in Paseo. Girls can grow up and become firefighters if they want to. We’ve got a couple in the department and they do just fine on the job.”
“You’re impossible, Sullivan. I’m not going to have my little girl staring at fire engines all day.” Shaking her head, she checked the price tag on the white crib. This was supposed to be a discount store but from the looks of things, she’d be better off checking out the weekly throwaway newspaper for a good, used crib.
“Didn’t you want to be a firefighter when you were growing up?” He set a fire engine mobile in motion over the crib.
“Not me. Briefly I considered being the first female professional baseball player. You know, sort of a Jacqueline Robinson. But I changed my mind after I got hit in the head with the ball.”
“Ah, that explains everything.”
She threw a jab at his arm and missed when he jumped out of the way.
“What do you think about teddy bears?” she asked as she moved to the next display crib. “I’m going to put the baby in my sister’s old room but I don’t want to redecorate too much because I don’t plan to stay at Dad’s house any longer than I have to.”
Coming up beside her, he fingered the baby-blue bumper pad printed with dancing pink and green teddy bears. “You’re determined to be independent, aren’t you?”
“I’m hardly in a position to rely on anyone except myself.”
“Yeah, and that stinks, too.”
“It’s not exactly what I had intended to happen when the time came for me to have a baby,” she admitted.
“If anyone can handle it, you can.”
She glanced up at him and got an odd sense of pride at the sincerity in his eyes. He wasn’t teasing her. He really did think she could make it on her own.
“Thanks,” she said.
He shrugged in response and edged away from her as though he’d come too close, had revealed too much.
She understood he’d only agreed to hang in there as her coach—and her friend—until the baby arrived. Then he, too, would walk away. She wished that thought didn’t hurt so much.
“So what about the teddy bears?” she asked.
“They’re generic enough so you could use the same gear for your next kid.”
She sputtered a laugh. “I’d certainly have to rely on someone else for that kind of a miracle.”
“You’ll find someone, Twigs. Edgar’s not the only fish in the sea.”
“But you’re not volunteering to get caught in my net, huh?”
A stain of red colored his cheeks. “So are you going to buy the teddy bears?”
“Not yet. I need to think about it first.” Turning away, she walked toward the back of the store. “I want to look at car seats now.”
Danny checked his watch. What the hell! They’d been in this same store for almost two hours. He could have furnished an entire house in this much time. So much for his bragging about power shopping.
Stephanie dawdled over everything. Cribs. Changing tables. Dressers. Diaper bags. Infant swings. And now car seats. This whole ordeal was endless, and with each passing moment he felt like he wanted to be more than an observer. He wanted a real say in teddy bears vs. prissy ballerinas.
If Stephanie were carrying his daughter, his vote would count. But he didn’t have the right.
He caught up with her. “I thought I came along to carry stuff for you. So far you haven’t bought a thing.”
Hauling a car seat off the shelf, she placed it in the middle of the aisle to examine it more carefully. “You must have misunderstood. I said shopping, not buying. I need to check out what’s available before I make any decisions.”
He gave a strangled groan. They could be at this for days!
“Have you considered taking one of the store’s catalogs home and making your decisions there?”
“It’s better when I can actually touch things. But if you’re bored—”
“Okay, here’s another idea,” he said, a little desperately now. “Let’s make some tentative decisions, like the teddy bears. We’ll schlep the stuff back to your house, set it up and take a look. If you don’t like it, we’ll bring it back. How’s that?”
“What if I find the same thing later at a lower price?
I can’t afford to—”
“I can. We’ll put everything on my Visa. Worst case, I have to bring stuff back and they give me a credit.” He hooked his arm through hers, which was a mistake because she felt so good to touch. “Come on. I’ll show you power shopping made easy.”
“You’re being bossy again.”
“Nope. I’m saving you from yourself. At the rate you’re going, the kid will be two years old and too big for a crib before you make up your mind. And she’ll be twisted because she’s been sleeping on the floor the whole time.”
Stephanie protested again, though not too forcefully. So he found a clerk—which was no easy trick—and put their shopping trip into high gear. Crib. Teddy bear sheets and bumper pads plus a matching quilt, which she objected to as being too expensive. A musical mobile along the same theme. A white changing table that matched the crib.
Finally Stephanie dug in her heels, insisting they’d spent enough for one day.
Danny relented, except as they headed for the cash register a display of soft, cuddly teddy bears caught his eye. He picked up one and handed it to Stephanie.
“This will look good in the crib.”
She hugged it to her chest, rubbing her cheek across the top of its head. “I’m going to pay you back for all of this.”
“Not for that teddy bear, you won’t. It’s a special gift from me to her.” He brushed his hand gently over her stomach.
She nodded and mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
He figured her emotions were on edge and she couldn’t speak. He was getting a little choked up about the whole thing, too. But a macho guy like him couldn’t let on.
TWO HOURS LATER, Danny had a three-sided crib upside down in what would be the baby’s room, giving new meaning to the phrase, “Some assembly required.” The room was littered with packing material and cardboard boxes. The one thing that appeared to be missing were the instructions to put the damn crib together.
“I’m telling you, we’re missing a set of screws for this side of the crib,” he said.
“I’ll look around Dad’s workbench in the garage. Maybe he’s got something that will work.”
Sitting back on his haunches, he splayed his fingers through his hair. In about two minutes he was going to make an emergency call to Tommy Tonka. Maybe the kid could make sense of this jigsaw puzzle.
Stephanie returned with an assortment of nuts, bolts and screws in her hand. “Try these.”
She looked as fresh as when they’d started the shopping trip, her hair neatly combed, her floral blouse dazzling bright. In contrast, Danny felt like he’d been run over by a couple of fire trucks and was ready to be hosed down the sewer. It didn’t help his mood that he kept catching the faint scent of her apricot shampoo and couldn’t bury his face in her hair to inhale it more fully as he was tempted to do.
He took the screws she’d brought him and went back to work.
“Dad tells the story of a Christmas Eve when he had to put together a huge play kitchen for me and Karen. It had a thousand different parts and as many screws, according to Dad, and he and Mom had been at the neighbors nipping on the egg nog. Apparently it was the longest Christmas Eve on record.”
Danny grimaced, tightening down the last screw. He could definitely sympathize with the problem and he was stone-cold sober.
Standing, he tucked the screwdriver in his hip pocket and grabbed hold of one end of the crib. “Let’s see if we can get this thing upright. Don’t hurt yourself,” he warned when Stephanie lifted the other end.
“It’s not that heavy.”
They righted the bed, then made quick work of putting in the mattress, covering it with the new sheet and adding the bumper pad. Stephanie clipped the teddy bear mobile to the side rail and Danny placed the big teddy bear at the foot of the bed, the price tag still attached to its pink ribbon.
She wound the base of the mobile and they watched the miniature bears circle above the crib as the music box played a tinkling rendition of “Rock-a-bye Baby.”
Instinctively he slid his arm around Stephanie’s waist and pulled her close. She dipped her head to his shoulder.
“Pretty neat, huh?” Danny said, skimming his cheek across the top of her head. Her hair was silky smooth and fragrant with her shampoo.
“It’s beautiful. Just perfect. She’ll love it.”
“Have you thought of a name yet?”
“I was thinking about naming her after my mother—Victoria—but I worry that would be too hard on Dad.”
“Victoria.” He smiled. Instinctively he’d come close to saying Vickie Sullivan but stopped himself just in time. The baby would be Vickie Gray. No relation to him except maybe an honorary niece, which didn’t sound quite right since he was going to help deliver her. “Your mom was a terrific lady. You should ask your dad what he thinks.”
“Maybe I will.”
“How much longer till the baby’s due?”
“The middle of May. Eight weeks.”
Already hanging on to his self-control by a thread, Danny suspected those eight weeks would be the longest in his life.
He swallowed hard. “What do we have to shop for next?”
Chapter Ten
Stephanie knew the preschool took field trips to the fire station. The trips didn’t always happen on the days when C shift was on duty, however, and she’d figured she had a two-out-of-three chance Danny wouldn’t be there when the students and teachers of Storytime Preschool showed up.
Obviously this was not a day she should buy a lottery ticket.
With a sigh, she herded her eight young charges into Station 6 through the open bay doors. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Danny; she wanted to see him too much. The man had become an addiction that would be hard to break, and she knew the day would come all too soon when she’d have to bite the bullet. Going cold turkey would be the easiest way; she doubted there was anything resembling a nicotine patch that would make the loss bearable.
“Stay close together, children,” she reminded them. “And keep holding hands with your partner.”
“There’s Buttons!” True to form, Tami Malone broke ranks, dashing forward on her own and throwing herself around the dog’s neck.
“Tami!” Urging the other children along, Stephanie caught up with the girl and took her gently by the arm.
Logan Strong had Buttons well under control, and the dog looked unperturbed by Tami’s energetic hug. Still, it was dangerous to have children running willy-nilly around the fire station.
“Looks like we have a dog lover visiting our station house,” Logan said in his usual composed way.
With an apologetic smile at Logan, Stephanie knelt in front of the child. “What did Ms. Stephanie tell you about staying in line?”
“But I missed my doggie!” the youngster complained, her hunger to hug Buttons again palpable.
“Yes, I know, and we’ll all have a chance to visit with Buttons, but you have to stay with your partner until it’s your turn.”
The child’s lower lip protruded about an inch. “Buttons missed me, too.”
“I’m sure that’s true—”
“Can we slide down the fire pole?” Jason Swift asked. He gazed up toward the ceiling where the pole vanished into a circular hole, a quick means of descent for firefighters when the fire tone sounded.
“No, honey, you’re too young—”
“Can we drive the fire engine?” Bobby asked.
“I’m sure the firefighters will let you sit in—”
Before she finished her sentence, both Bobby and Jason broke for the fire truck, followed by the rest of her gang of four-year-olds.
She glanced at Logan. “I sure hope Tami’s parents get her a puppy before too long. That poor little girl is absolutely dog crazy.”
“So is my daughter Maddie.” His smile was that of a proud father, though Stephanie knew Maddie was his wife’s child by a prior marriage, which didn’t seem to matter to Logan. “When she got one of Button
s’ offspring, she thought she was in seventh heaven.”
“She’s a lucky girl in lots of ways.” Including having Logan as a devoted stepfather. “Gotta corral my kids before they get into too much mischief.”
With a quick smile, she hurried to round up the children again and get them back in line. Over by the ladder truck, Alice didn’t appear to be having nearly as much trouble keeping order among her students. Experience apparently counted.
Or maybe Stephanie didn’t have a natural inclination to manage children, which boded rather poorly for her future as a mother.
“Can I help?”
She started at the sound of Danny’s voice and turned, her heart speeding up despite her efforts to remain calm. “If Buttons has some extra leashes, that would be helpful.”
He chuckled, and his warm laughter did wonderful things to her insides. She’d seen him at least briefly almost every day for the past week and every time she’d gotten a quick thrill at the first sight of him. Today was no exception. A man in uniform did that to a woman, she supposed. But in Danny’s case, he looked just as good in shorts and a T-shirt. Or in nothing at all, she recalled with a sigh.
If anything, her frustration had grown even more intense since the night they’d made love. At some level, she thought Danny was having the same problem but that might be wishful thinking on her part.
How could she tell? And what on earth should she do about it even if he were as eager as she to hop back into the sack together? Or on a couch, or whatever was handy?
All of which was driving her crazy.
“I’ll check with Logan,” he said, “but I don’t think we’ve got enough leashes to go around.” He eyed the youngsters with some hesitancy.
“Hey, Mr. Firemens, I remember you,” Bobby said. “You saved our hamsters.”
“Actually your Ms. Stephanie did most of the rescuing on that little caper.”
She smiled. “You can’t blame it all on me. You saved Arnold, after all.”
He held up his thumb. “And still have the scar to prove it.”
“Have you still gots your medal?” Tami asked.
“Uh, sure I do. It’s in my locker upstairs.”
With Courage and Commitment Page 12
