Their Unexpected Family

by Judy Duarte

  Then, while mother and baby settled in, Mark went downstairs and purchased dinner at The Hitching Post, even though he was a bit sick of their meals.

  He returned to the apartment and let himself in.

  “It’s me,” he said, setting the bags of food on the table.

  “I’m in here,” Juliet called from the bedroom.

  He entered and found her placing the baby in a secondhand cradle and covering her with a green crocheted blanket. He wondered if she’d brought the cradle from San Diego, but didn’t ask. He was too caught up in the scene before him.

  Juliet wore a white cotton nightgown, the thin material and the lamplight allowing him a glimpse of her silhouette. The way her breasts seemed fuller, the nipples pronounced. Her belly hadn’t gone back to its normal size, yet she looked beautiful standing over the baby’s bed, her hair glossy and hanging free.

  He scoffed at himself for staring. And for finding her still attractive. “I…uh…got pot roast this evening. And strawberry shortcake for dessert.”

  “Thanks. That sounds delicious.” She cast him a smile, one that lit her face and made him realize how pretty she was without makeup and any special effects.

  He raked a hand through his hair and leaned against the doorjamb. “Mrs. Tasker sent up a bottle of sparkling apple cider in celebration.”

  “That was nice of her.”

  “She’d also like to come up and see the baby, but I told her tonight wasn’t a good time.” Actually, he didn’t like the idea of having people breathe over the baby. Not yet. She was too tiny, too vulnerable. What if Marissa caught a germ and got sick?

  “I’m a bit tired,” Juliet admitted. “Tomorrow would be better.”

  Mark hoped she didn’t think he was moving in, or something. He had every intention of taking his shaving kit back to the inn and staying where he belonged. “If you don’t mind, I’ll join you for dinner. Then I’ll head back to the inn.”

  “All right.” Her smile faltered, waned. Was she disappointed that he’d be leaving? Afraid she couldn’t handle the baby alone yet?

  “Unless you’d rather I stayed one more night,” he added.

  “No, that’s all right. I think we’ll be fine.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then glanced at Marissa’s sleeping form. “Give me a minute, and I’ll be right there.”

  He nodded, then returned to the dining area. Moments later, she joined him. But she’d slipped on her blue robe and a pair of scruffy white slippers.

  Was she getting shy all of a sudden? Or just chilled?

  “Should I turn up the heat?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not cold.”

  Okay. So she wasn’t wearing the robe to ward off a chill. But Mark let it drop.

  They ate dinner in silence, an awkwardness settling over them. Mark didn’t have a clue what had caused it. Not exactly. The fact that they’d been playing house maybe. That they’d been a couple for nearly a week. And now playtime was over.

  He opened the bottle of sparkling cider and poured them both a glass. Lifting his, he said, “To Marissa.”

  Juliet clinked her glass against his, then took a sip. He watched the movement of her swallow, admired the shape of her neck, as he had before. Swanlike. Pretty.

  She stood and moved toward the bookshelf that held her family photos, then picked one up, communing with her family the only way she could. She lifted another silver frame, then swiped a hand under her eyes. Her shoulders trembled.

  Oh, hell. She was crying.

  His mind told him to stay seated. To let her grieve alone. To mind his own business. To find a reason to leave. But for some inexplicable reason, he stood and made his way to her side.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She turned, eyes red and watery. A tear slid down her face. “I’m so sorry they couldn’t see Marissa. That they can’t be a part of her life.”

  Mark wrapped her in his arms and drew her close, breathing in the citrusy scent of her shampoo. Offering her his strength. Hoping his embrace was enough.

  Her tears continued to fall, so he continued to hold her.

  “I’m really sorry,” she whispered into his cotton dress shirt, making it warm and moist. “I haven’t done this in a long time.”

  “It’s the baby. And hormones,” he said, although he had no idea if that were true. It sounded reasonable, he supposed.

  His mother used to say that to Kelly, when she locked herself in her room for days at a time. Mark had always figured his sister was depressed because the SOB she’d married had left her barefoot and pregnant. But his parents had been too busy to seek help for her, counseling. Something.

  “You’re probably right,” Juliet said, causing him to wonder what it was that he’d said. “It’s normal to have some depression after birth. Some people call it the baby blues.”

  She sniffled, as if the crying jag were all over.

  Whew. This childbirth stuff was so new. So out of his league.

  As he loosened his embrace and let her go, she glanced at the bookshelf, ran her hand along a water-mark on the wood. “Manny made that stain. He…”

  She sniffled again, then batted away a new tear. And then another.

  The next thing Mark knew, he was holding her again. And she was trembling in his arms. “Come on, honey. Let’s take a walk into the other room.”

  Of course, the only other room was the bedroom, where Marissa slept. This apartment was so damn small there was no escape from the memories of the past. But maybe the baby would offer her a promise of the future.

  When they reached the bed, he used his thumbs to wipe the tears from her eyes. “Why don’t you lie down? You ought to rest while the baby is sleeping.”

  “Will you lie down with me? Just for a minute or two?”

  He nodded, willing to do anything to make her feel better. To see that pretty Pollyanna smile again.

  “Sure.” He joined her on the bed, fully clothed, his loafers still on his feet.

  He tried his best to comfort her, as they lay there for the longest time, not talking. Not needing to.

  When she finally fell asleep, he continued to hold her.

  And he didn’t have the foggiest idea why.

  Chapter Eight

  Juliet slept better than she had in years.

  She’d missed human contact, the warmth of a touch, the comfort of an embrace, the steady beat of a heart. So she nestled in a sweet dimension, somewhere between dreamland and reality, relishing a peaceful slumber.

  Until Marissa fussed and began to root into the sheets of her cradle.

  Juliet opened her eyes, ready to reach for her daughter and feed her. But she couldn’t move.

  Mark had one arm under her neck and the other around her waist, holding her close.

  They’d left a lamp on in the other room, which allowed her to see, and she sought the lighted dial of the clock on the dresser.

  Almost midnight.

  They’d lain like that for nearly three hours, like lovers. Like husband and wife. New parents.

  For just a moment, she let herself go, let herself pretend that Mark loved her, that she loved him in return. And that her daughter had a devoted family in which she could grow up.

  But love was a game of pretend Juliet didn’t dare play.

  “Mark,” she whispered softly.

  He grunted, then drew her closer. His chin nestled in her hair, the faint mountain-fresh scent of his cologne riding gently in the night air.

  “Mark,” she said again, this time louder. “I need to feed the baby.”

  “Huh?”

  Marissa let out a cry, and the poor guy nearly jumped through the ceiling.

  The mattress wobbled as he braced himself on an elbow and scanned the room. “God, I’m so sorry. I fell asleep. I must have been more tired than I realized.”

  Juliet smiled, as she climbed from bed and retrieved her hungry daughter. “That’s okay.”

  He glanced at the clock and blew out a sigh.
“I guess it’s too late to go back to the inn. But I…uh…can go out to the sofa.”

  She smiled at his sheepish expression, at his thoughtfulness. “Don’t bother. Go on back to sleep.”

  “Are you sure?” He sat on the mattress and glanced at the single loafer he wore, probably wondering where he’d kicked off the other one.

  “I’m not sure what’s happened between us,” she said, as she shushed Marissa. “But it’s pretty safe to say we’ve become close friends in the past week or so.”

  He raked a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “I guess you’re right.”

  “So if you don’t mind if I nurse her, I don’t mind if you’re in the same room. After all, you’ve seen me at my worst.”

  He kicked off his remaining shoe, which thumped onto the floor, then laid back down, on top of the comforter, and rested his head on the pillow.

  As Marissa cried, anxious to eat, Juliet unbuttoned the front of her gown, releasing a breast and offering it to her child. Within moments, the baby latched on. Juliet’s milk was just starting to come in—at least she suspected it was. Her breasts were fuller, and Marissa seemed to be swallowing more than she had before.

  The lamplight from the living room cast a dull glow through the bedroom door, making it easy to see, easy to marvel at her pretty, dark-haired baby.

  Juliet looked over her shoulder, saw Mark lying in bed, eyes open, watching her. She wasn’t sure there was much to see, other than an outline of her breast. And interestingly enough, she didn’t feel shy or embarrassed.

  She felt womanly.

  “Do you want me to get you anything?” he asked. “A diaper or a glass of water?”

  She offered him a smile that came from her heart. “How did I ever get by without a friend like you?”

  He didn’t answer. And that was just as well, because the underlying reality echoed in her mind.

  Once Mark was gone, she’d have to get by on her own again.

  Ever since Mark had fallen asleep with Juliet and wakened with her in his arms, he’d gone back to the Wander-On-Inn each night at bedtime.

  In the past, he’d always enjoyed the quiet hours before turning in. But lately, he worried about what was going on at the apartment across the street, about whether Juliet was okay, whether the baby was sleeping longer between feedings.

  He supposed Juliet had been right about their friendship. They’d definitely forged some kind of a bond in the past two weeks. A bond that was just as frightening as it was appealing.

  Somehow, the pretty young mother had touched his heart—as a friend, of course. And her daughter had done the same thing.

  So that was why, a week after Marissa was born, Mark drove Juliet and the baby to the clinic for a weight check.

  Juliet had said she could probably drive herself, since she’d had an easy birth and hadn’t needed any medication or an episiotomy. But Mark had still insisted on going. To be honest, he wanted to make sure that Marissa was gaining weight and that everything was all right.

  He secured the car seat in the back of his rented sedan, while Juliet carried the baby down the steps. And moments later, they were on their way to the Lone Pine Medical Building, which was located on White Water Drive, just past the entrance to the hospital.

  Several different doctors, including Doc Emerson, Juliet’s primary physician, housed their offices in a single building that shared a large, single waiting room. A registration desk sat in each open doorway. They signed in at the pediatrician’s office and took a seat near the entry.

  Their appointment wasn’t supposed to take long, since it was with the nurse and not a full-blown checkup.

  About ten minutes after they signed in at the pediatric desk, a grandmotherly blonde wearing a blue smock with a Noah’s ark print called Marissa’s name.

  “I’m Karen,” she said, as she led them back to a small exam room.

  Juliet was asked to undress the sleeping baby—something Marissa didn’t like. Her wail of protest soon filled the air.

  Karen placed the naked, crying baby on the scale and fiddled with the dial. “There we go. Four pounds, eleven and a half ounces.”

  Uh-oh. Only a half ounce? That wasn’t very much, was it? At this rate, Marissa would be in kindergarten before she hit the ten-pound mark.

  “Good job, Mom.” Karen picked up the unhappy baby and handed her to Juliet. “She’s already regained her birth weight.”

  “That’s good,” Juliet said. “She’d dropped down to four pounds, six ounces when we left the hospital.”

  Oh. So she was making up for lost weight. Mark blew out a sigh. “When do we have to bring her back in?”

  The “we” slipped out without him realizing it.

  Damn, he was going to have to step back and let Juliet and Marissa get on with their lives. He’d be leaving town shortly—just as soon as he finished the story.

  “Since the baby was a good four weeks early and small,” the nurse said, “we’d like to see her in another week. But so far, so good. She’s doing just great. Do you have any questions?”

  “When can she take a bath?” Juliet asked.

  “The cord is just dangling. So as soon as it falls off, you can bathe her.”

  Mark didn’t like the thought of the tiny girl in the bathtub. “Isn’t she too little for the tub?”

  The nurse smiled. “If you don’t have one of those plastic baby baths, you can bathe her in the kitchen sink.”

  “Oh,” he said. There was a lot about babies he still didn’t know.

  The nurse led them to the desk where they could make an appointment. When they settled on next Friday at two, the receptionist said, “There’s a ten-dollar co-pay for this visit.”

  Mark reached for his wallet.

  “What are you doing?” Juliet tugged at his shirtsleeve. “I can pay that.”

  “I know.” But he wasn’t going to let her. She had a lot of upcoming expenses—a babysitter, for one. He whipped out a twenty. “Let me take care of this.”

  The woman at the desk gave him change and they returned to the car. All the while, Marissa made quite a racket, and no amount of shushing or gentle swaying seemed to help.

  “Do you mind if I feed her first?” Juliet asked.

  “No. Go ahead.” Mark hadn’t meant to watch, to see her unbutton her pink cotton blouse and offer a breast to the child. But he couldn’t turn away.

  It’s not as though there was anything sexual about it. Well, not really. But the attraction, the appeal, was just as strong, just as powerful.

  For a moment, he wondered if he would ever be part of a family—like this one. But he quickly shook off the crazy notion.

  After all, he’d been married once. To a pretty coed he’d met in college, a homebody with a teaching credential. The kind of woman who wanted to be a mother and create a family. A sweet, twenty-two-year-old redhead who’d morphed into a whiny nag after the first six months. And then she’d offered him an ultimatum—either his marriage or his career.

  Mark had told her that he couldn’t walk away from the job he loved, especially not while on an assignment. And when he got back to town, she was gone—along with the furniture and all the wedding gifts.

  The failure of the marriage had hurt, even though he’d sensed it coming. But he hadn’t fought the divorce, letting his ex have all the stuff they’d acquired in the short time they’d been together.

  What the hell. He would have had to put everything in storage anyway.

  After Marissa had been burped and placed into the car seat, Mark headed home along White Water Drive.

  The sky was a vast, springtime blue, and the sun promised to warm the wintry chill in the breeze and carry them to summer. Yet Mark had learned the weather in Montana could turn stormy on Mother Nature’s whim.

  As they neared the colorful flags that lined the entrance of Ranch View Estates, a hell of an idea began to form.

  Mark’s accountant had been after him for years to buy a home—as an investment,
as a much needed tax write-off. But Mark had dragged his feet.

  Hell, he’d let the execs at Golden Eagle know that he was willing to go anywhere the company sent him. So why have a house when he was never home?

  Instead, he’d socked away the cash he would have spent on a mortgage and put it into a money market account that had been growing steadily. With his globe-trotting lifestyle, complete with a hefty expense account, he didn’t have much opportunity to spend his earnings.

  Still, he thought about what his accountant had said.

  What if he bought one of those ranch-style houses? Just a small one, of course. He could let Juliet and the baby live there, and she could take care of the property for him—in lieu of rent. After all, he’d be taxed on rental income anyway, wouldn’t he?

  And she certainly didn’t need to be wasting money that was better spent elsewhere. Her wages and tips from The Hitching Post couldn’t possibly be very much, and he suspected she would have a difficult time making ends meet, especially if she had to hire a sitter.

  And speaking of babysitters, they’d better find someone good. Someone competent. Mark didn’t like the idea of just anyone looking after Marissa.

  “It’s a pretty day,” Juliet said.

  “Yeah. It is.” And it was too nice for her and the baby to stay cooped up in that drab old apartment. “I was planning to go by the museum today. Would you and Marissa like to go with me?”

  “Sure. We’d love to. On my days off, I used to spend a lot of time there.” She crossed her arms and slid him a questioning look. “But why do you want to go to the museum? I thought history didn’t interest you.”

  “Normally, it wouldn’t. But I’m looking for information about the Queen of Hearts that will add a little color and flavor the article I’m writing. And while I interview the docent, you and Marissa can wander around and enjoy the place all you want.”

  “We will.” Then she flashed him a pretty smile that turned him every which way but loose.

  Damn. He was growing a little too fond of the mother and her baby. Too concerned about their welfare.