One Baby Step at a Time

by Meredith Webber

  * * *

  Now he’d never sleep because now he was remembering the kiss. Nick headed for his bedroom, muttering under his breath. Bad enough he’d had to fight the impulse to touch Bill—on the shoulder, knee, neck, cheek—all through breakfast, but by reminding him that he had thanked her, she’d reminded him of the kiss.

  He couldn’t do it—couldn’t have her living here while this peculiar reaction to her was going on in his body.

  Not that he could manage without her.

  Although...?

  Running through his roster in his head, he remembered he had three days off coming up soon.

  When?

  Five nights on then three off, wasn’t that the system here at Willowby?

  So two more nights on duty, and by the end of his three days off, the hospital human resources department should have found a locum to fill in for him. Two weeks, that’s all he’d asked for.

  He’d need to sleep for some time on the first of his days off, but he could sleep when Steffi slept. He’d show Bill over the next two afternoons how well he could manage his daughter so his friend wouldn’t be worried when he told her he could cope without her.

  And on that cheery note he fell asleep, only to dream of a long-legged, red-haired siren running through his life, always just ahead of him, taunting and tantalising him but never within reach.

  Something really good was cooking when he woke up, and the aroma permeating the house was more than enough to tempt him out of bed.

  ‘What are you cooking?’ he demanded as he came into the kitchen, starving because he’d slept through lunch.

  ‘Casserole for dinner,’ Bill replied, ‘but there’s ham in the fridge if you want to make a sandwich for a late lunch. I’m doing a big casserole of meat and veggies in the slow cooker so you can freeze it in meal-sized portions and always have something you can shove in the microwave when it’s been a bad day.’

  Nick was pulling butter and ham from the refrigerator as she finished talking and from where he was the words had an ominous sound.

  ‘What kind of bad day?’

  Bill turned from where she was adjusting knobs on the steriliser and smiled at him.

  It had to be hunger that was making his heart miss a beat while a desire stronger than he’d ever felt before surged through his body.

  Sure the state of his arousal would be obvious, he dumped the makings of his lunch on the table, mumbled, ‘Tell me later—I should shower before I eat,’ and fled the kitchen.

  It had to be the dream, he decided as he stood under the shower that was not quite cold but definitely cool.

  And if it wasn’t the dream—if he was going to get an erection of mammoth proportions every time Bill smiled at him—then one of them had to go.

  Now.

  A not unhappy wail from Steffi’s bedroom made him amend that to soon.

  Very soon.

  He dried himself, pulled on clothes then, thinking Bill would still be busy in the kitchen, went to retrieve his daughter from her cot.

  She’d pulled herself up and was peering at him over the top, smilingly delighted with her achievement.

  ‘Yes, you are a clever girl,’ he assured her, lifting her and holding her close, feeling again the somersault of love this small mortal had brought into his life.

  And because, for at least the next few days, they both needed Bill, she would have to stay.

  ‘So I’ll have to keep my mind on you and the problems you’re causing in my life, young lady,’ he told Steffi as he put her on the change table and began the process of nappy-changing.

  ‘Yuck!’ he said, as he undid her nappy.

  The word brought a crow of delight from his daughter, but as he cleaned up the little bottom he noticed redness.

  Nappy rash.

  He knew the words, but treatment?

  With one hand on Steffi’s tummy he surveyed the array of tubes and jars of cream on hand beside the change table.

  ‘This thick stuff?’ he wondered, waving the jar in front of the little girl.

  Steffi gurgled her approval, but it was the ‘Well done!’ from the doorway that confirmed he’d chosen the correct remedy.

  ‘I need to read the notes again,’ he said as he smeared the white cream liberally all over Steffi’s little bottom, but only part of his mind was on the job, the rest of it thinking about Bill—wondering why on earth, after all these years, he should suddenly be attracted to her.

  He finished changing Steffi and, remembering she usually had a drink of water after her sleep, carried her into the kitchen where Bill had a covered container of boiled water ready for any occasion.

  ‘I’ll get the cup,’ Bill offered, and she filled the little cup and screwed the lid on, handing it not to Nick but to Steffi, who grasped one of the handles and tried to manoeuvre the sipping part into her mouth.

  ‘Can’t quite manage it, kid?’ Bill teased, and she held the cup so Steffi could suck from it.

  They were close, so close, Nick holding the baby, Bill with one hand on Steffi’s back, helping her to drink, then gold-brown eyes lifted and met his, and a heaviness in Nick’s chest stopped his breathing.

  It seemed their gazes held for minutes, although seconds seemed more likely, the spell broken when Bill smiled and said, rather breathlessly, ‘Well, isn’t this the silliest thing ever?’

  And without waiting for an answer, she took Steffi from his arms, said, ‘Get your lunch,’ and disappeared with his daughter into the living room.

  He made his sandwich and considered staying right there in the kitchen to eat it, but that would be even sillier than whatever was happening between them. Bill’s statement had confirmed she, too, was feeling the attraction, so surely the best way to deal with it would be to talk about it.

  Calmly and sensibly discuss it—maybe work out some rational reason why this should be happening between them now.

  He took his sandwich into the living room, where Bill was lying on the floor, Steffi bouncing up and down on her stomach.

  Nick sank into an armchair, took a bite of his sandwich, a sip of tea, then decided there was no time like the present to get it out into the open.

  It?

  Could something like the desire he was feeling for this woman be encompassed in a simple ‘it’?

  ‘It must be that we haven’t seen much of each other over the last few years,’ he said, then worried that perhaps she hadn’t been talking about attraction earlier and he’d gone and made a fool of himself.

  She peered at him around Steffi’s head.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Well, something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ he grumbled. ‘Come on, it’s not like you not to be offering an opinion—several opinions, in fact.’

  ‘About what?’ she asked, all innocence, shifting so Steffi was now on the floor but remaining close to her so Steffi could play with her hair.

  ‘You know damn well what.’

  He was growling now, certain the woman was taunting him, stretched out so languidly on his floor, legs, hips, waist, breasts offered up to him, while the lips that had tasted so soft and sweet quivered with a little smile that was driving him to distraction.

  He finished his sandwich, refusing to play her game, but when Steffi’s attention was fully absorbed with a toy that made the most extraordinary noises when she pushed buttons and pulled on levers, Bill sat up, moving closer to him but stopping just short of resting her head on his knees, as she’d done countless times in the past when they had been no more than friends.

  Which they were now, weren’t they?

  ‘Remember us sitting like this while we sorted out one or other of our love lives?’ she asked, following his thoughts with such precision it was scary.

  ‘Or sorting out the problems
of the world,’ he reminded her.

  She nodded, then put her hand on his knee.

  It was nothing more than a friendly gesture, yet his skin beneath that hand burned as if she’d branded him. He wanted to lift it off so the pain would go away, and he wanted it to stay there—for ever...

  Silence fell between them, although the bells and whistles continued to rattle around the room from Steffi’s toy, and her giggles of delight distracted Nick so when Bill spoke he didn’t catch what she was saying until she was well into her statement.

  ‘—because your life is complicated enough as it is right now, what with Steffi, and Serena coming back to talk. We don’t need to make it more complicated by having an affair.’

  ‘Who mentioned an affair?’ he demanded.

  She grinned at him.

  ‘Are you saying that isn’t what your body wants?’

  ‘Of course it is—no, of course it isn’t. Why an affair anyway?’

  ‘Well, I hardly think it could turn into a for-ever-and-ever thing, could it?’

  She ran her finger over his lips, freezing his thoughts, although he’d have liked to ask why it couldn’t be for ever and ever...

  ‘Nick, the attraction is there,’ she continued gently. ‘It’s inconvenient, nothing more than that. I’m saying I think we have to live with the inconvenience of it. We’ll both be busy enough with work and caring for Steffi, and once you’re sorted with a nanny I won’t need to be living here so it will be easier. But your world has been turned upside down—mine too, to a lesser extent—so it’s only natural that our bodies should be turning to each other for support.’

  ‘It’s not support my body wants from yours,’ Nick growled, taking that tantalising finger and sucking gently on it.

  ‘Or mine from yours, to tell the truth,’ Bill admitted, shivering a little as she removed her finger and leaned against his legs, resting her head on his knees, licking at his skin to get a taste of Nick—the kind of taste she’d never considered she could ever want.

  ‘And you can stop that,’ he told her, easing her away from his legs and settling on the floor to play with Steffi. ‘Go and do whatever you have to do—we’ll be right until dinner and bathtime. See you around five?’

  * * *

  So, that was it for the attraction conversation, Bill realised. She hauled herself off the floor, bent to kiss the top of Steffi’s head as she said goodbye, and left the apartment.

  But she couldn’t shut the door on thoughts of Nick.

  Nick as a man.

  Nick as a desirable, sexy man who was stirring her body into an agony of wanting.

  She pulled her mobile out of her pocket and phoned him.

  ‘I suppose the alternative would be for us to have a quick, passionate fling and get it out of our systems then we could go back to where we were,’ she said as soon as he answered.

  ‘And just when could we conduct this fling?’ he demanded. ‘I can’t even answer the phone without my daughter trying to wrestle it from me, and we’d no sooner get to the interesting part than she’d be yelling from her cot. Coitus interruptus at its best.’

  ‘At least I wouldn’t get pregnant,’ Bill told him, chuckling at the image he’d described. ‘But you’re right, best we just ignore the whole thing and hope it will go away.’

  ‘Like a really, really bad cold,’ Nick grumped, then he disconnected the call.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BILL DID BUSY stuff to distract herself, washing, vacuuming, putting fresh sheets on the bed, and clearing debris from the refrigerator as she’d be eating at Nick’s for this week at least.

  Food, refrigerator, Nick’s—

  She grabbed her phone again and hit Nick’s speed-dial number.

  ‘Not another suggestion about our sex lives?’ he muttered as he answered.

  ‘Of course not,’ Bill told him. ‘Something far more important than sex. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier but, Nick, we haven’t told Gran about Steffi, and if we don’t someone else is sure to now all the de Grootes know, but what do we say?’

  She heard Nick groan.

  ‘Damn and blast—I should have gone over yesterday but yesterday was a disaster from start to finish. Can I borrow your car? I’ll take her now. We’ll have time before dinner—but then there’s her nap.’

  ‘She’ll sleep in the car and, yes, we’ll go in my car. I’ll drive.’

  ‘You’ll come?’

  Nick sounded so surprised Bill had to laugh.

  ‘Didn’t we always face Gran, or my parents for that matter, together when we were in trouble?’

  ‘I’m not sure trouble quite covers this situation,’ Nick replied, sounding so uneasy Bill felt a pang of sympathy for him.

  Better that than lust, she realised as she told him to pull himself together, grab a brightly coloured bag off the chest of drawers—‘It’s got spare nappies, cream, clothes and baby wipes in it’—and meet her in the car park.

  She brought her car close to the lift and had the back door open when Nick and Steffi emerged. Taking Steffi from him, she strapped her in, aware Nick was watching every move, learning all the time.

  Aware too of Nick as a man—the impossible dream...

  * * *

  ‘I wondered when I was going to meet my great-granddaughter. Whillimina’s family have been phoning all day,’ Gran greeted them, then she lifted Steffi into her arms and smiled down at her. ‘And don’t bother telling me what it’s all about,’ she said, addressing both Nick and Bill. ‘I’m too old to be bothered with details. I just need to know the little girl is being properly looked after, and that I get to see her at least once a week and mind her from time to time.’

  ‘Oh, Gran,’ Nick said, his voice so husky the words barely came out, then he hugged the woman who’d brought him up, his arms easily encompassing both her and his daughter. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t let you know about her earlier but it’s all come as such a shock.’

  Gran led them into the living room and waved for them to sit down. Steffi was playing with the glass beads around Gran’s neck, apparently quite comfortable on the older woman’s knee.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back, of course,’ Gran said, ‘but when you made the arrangements to return you didn’t know about young Steffi here. Things will change, you know.’

  ‘And how,’ Nick told her, but Gran wasn’t finished.

  ‘Not just in adjusting to having a child, but now you know about Steffi you will have different priorities and I don’t want you to feel you have to honour your contract in Willowby because of me. You were a good boy and you’ve grown into a fine man, and you keep in touch with me more than most young men would with their parents or grandparents, but you have to live your own life, remember.’

  What was she saying?

  Nick ran her words through his head, thinking he could ask Bill later what she’d thought of them, but Bill had excused herself to make some tea.

  ‘Once I’ve sorted out the care arrangements, Steffi won’t make too much difference in my life,’ he told Gran, who smiled and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said gently. ‘We’ll see.’

  Bored with the beads, Steffi was trying to climb off Gran’s knee so Nick rescued her and put her on the floor, pulling a stacking toy out of the bag Bill had obviously prepared for outings such as this.

  ‘And Whillimina?’ Gran asked, nodding her head towards the kitchen. ‘I hear she’s helping you take care of Steffi.’

  ‘Only until the hospital can give me some time off and we get a nanny to look after her when I go back to work.’

  It sounded like an excuse and he knew Gran would pick up on it.

  ‘Is it fair on her, considering all that happened to her in the past?’ Gran asked, right on cue.

>   All that’s happened in the past?

  Nick wanted to ask Gran what she meant, but Bill came through the door at that moment, carrying a tray with teapot, milk and sugar, cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits on it.

  ‘Set it down on the sideboard where Steffi won’t be able to reach it,’ Gran said, removing a Dresden figurine from her great-granddaughter’s hands.

  Bill poured the tea and the rest of the visit was taken up with local gossip and general conversation.

  ‘Do you think someone’s told her about Serena and what happened that she was so incurious about how a baby lobbed into my life?’ Nick asked Bill as they drove back towards the apartment.

  Bill considered the matter for a while then shook her head.

  ‘I doubt it. I didn’t tell my lot much—just that you had a small child and needed stuff for her. Some of my sisters-in-law are probably dying to know, but most people would just shrug and accept it. I think with Gran she knows you’ll talk about it when you’re ready and she’s willing to wait until then.’

  ‘Talk about it when I’m ready?’

  Nick’s voice was so loud Steffi gave a little whimper then settled back into sleep.

  ‘How can I ever be ready when I haven’t a clue what’s really going on?’ Nick asked in a more subdued but still panicked tone. ‘So I know about Steffi and she’s here with me now, but what of the future? What will Serena’s “talk” entail? I want to stay here, Bill, to work here, for at least for a year and probably longer. I’d actually been thinking for ever...’

  His voice tailed off and he was silent for a moment, before he asked, ‘Can we drive to the beach? Not Woodchoppers but Sunrise, where we can sit in the car and look out at the water.’

  Bill understood exactly what he was asking—understood why as well. As teenagers they’d often sat on the headland at Sunrise Beach, looking out at the sea while they’d solved the problems of the world.

  Or their love lives...

  Bill parked the car in a corner of the car park and they sat in silence, Steffi asleep in her car seat.

  ‘I came here to see Gran and be with her,’ Nick finally said, ‘but, in truth, the life I’d decided to lead was palling. You can have too much fun, you know.’