A Mommy for His Baby

by Molly Evans

  He didn’t know how he was going to repay this woman for her kindness, her generosity and her friendship, but somehow he was going to. Giving her a job and an apartment wasn’t enough.

  “So, this is Chloe?” Aurora kept her voice to a whisper.

  “This is my baby girl.”

  Beau turned around to give Aurora a look at her beautiful face. As she was only nine months old she hadn’t evolved her own looks, but he thought she looked like Julie.

  “Put her on the bed. See if she’ll settle down and sleep there.” On the way past, she reached out and patted the little girl on the back. “She’s beautiful, Beau. Just beautiful.”

  “Looks like her mother, fortunately. I think so, anyway. My mother says she looks like me. Isn’t that what mothers always say?”

  “Babies tend to favor their fathers in the first six months.”

  “Really? I wonder why that is?” That made him frown. He hadn’t heard that before.

  “Probably some evolutionary thing that helps fathers bond with their children.” She shrugged, and pulled the covers back on the bed.

  He placed Chloe face down, away from the pillows, covered her with her blanket and tucked in the little ratty stuffed dog she loved.

  “God, I hope she sleeps.” He rubbed his face with his hands and stifled a yawn. “I’m so tired I could sleep standing up.”

  “Why don’t you forget about everything on your shoulders right now and lie down? The bed’s big enough for the three of us, I think.”

  Beau’s eyes popped wide in surprise. “I hadn’t planned on staying the night. I don’t want to inconvenience you on your first night here.”

  “Look. It’s not quite ten o’clock. I usually read for a while.” Aurora glanced down at the sleeping child. “We’re all wiped out. Let’s just call it a night, okay?”

  “Frankly, Aurora, I’m too tired to try to convince you otherwise.” He removed his boots and stretched out on the bed beside his sleeping daughter. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  He closed his eyes, sighed, and flung an arm over his face. The peace that he needed, that he sought every night at his empty house, was here in this little apartment. It immediately surrounded him, flinging off the dead weight of grief clinging to his shoulders and bringing relief he’d not known possible.

  “Just get some sleep. That’s all the thanks I need.”

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Morning brought a streak of sun shining through the window onto Beau’s face. He lay on his side, facing the wall, and blinked as his memory failed to alert him to his immediate surroundings. They looked familiar, but strange at the same time.

  Night had dropped on him like a brick building going down, and he’d slept like the dead for a change. Taking a deep breath in and looking around, he saw the boxes he’d carried in for Aurora last night, still sitting where he’d left them, and realized he’d fallen asleep at her place.

  That was why it looked and seemed so familiar. He’d lived here for a few weeks with Chloe after Julie’s death, while he got his office space converted from ready for animals to ready for people. That way he’d had a place to stay, it was nearby, and it had allowed him to grieve for Julie without being confronted by her clothing in their closet, her make-up in their bathroom, or the lingering fragrance of her perfume in the air. Facing the truth of her absence in their home was more than he’d been able to bear at the time.

  He sat and looked over his shoulder. Pressure filled his chest at the sight.

  Chloe slept like an angel, cuddled up against Aurora’s chest, and Aurora’s hand rested protectively on her back. Even in sleep they were both angels, for entirely different reasons. One had saved his soul, and the other was going to save his business.

  Some of his movements must have awakened Aurora because she took a breath and stirred. Her baby blues fluttered open, and she looked over at him with a sexy sleepiness he’d never imagined seeing in her eyes. At that moment he could just imagine waking up with her in his arms, taking his time to rouse her with kisses and caresses, sharing the morning with skin against skin.

  When she looked into his eyes, still half asleep, and smiled, he realized his body was trying to take him down a road he didn’t want to go. At least not yet. He needed a shower. A cold one. Fast.

  “Morning,” he whispered, and turned away. He didn’t need to see any more of Aurora if he was going to get through this morning without embarrassing himself.

  “Good morning.” Aurora stirred again and rose, extricating herself from Chloe without disturbing her.

  “Looks like you’ve done that before,” he said, impressed with skills it had taken him many months to acquire. Being a dad, learning everything he’d had to learn, had not been easy. At least not to him. Women, though, seemed to have some instinct about it. Probably why the human race had survived.

  “Lots of practice.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Babysitting as a teenager, then being a pediatric nurse. I’ve had lots of practice getting babies to go to sleep and stay that way.”

  “When she was a newborn I spent hours trying to get her to sleep for fifteen minutes. Maybe you can teach me a few of those tricks as I obviously still need them.”

  He shook his head and pushed his hair out of his face, thinking again that he either needed to get a haircut or start wearing a man bun. Not happening.

  “Happy to.”

  She stretched and pulled an extra-long sweatshirt over her head, which covered her from her neck to mid-thigh, and stuck her feet into fuzzy black slippers. Though it wasn’t the lingerie of a fashion model, the look was certainly endearing and totally Aurora.

  A rhythmic slapping on the floor caught his attention and he saw Daisy by the door, looking up at him with a message in her eyes.

  “Time to go out, girl?” The slapping got faster and she sat up, eagerness written all over her face, if that were possible. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  He turned to Aurora.

  “I’m going to take her out, then I’ll be back.”

  “Okay.” She glanced at the sleeping infant, sucking on her lip. “She’ll be fine.”

  With a nod, Beau opened the door and the dog rushed out, bounced down the stairs, then raced over to a patch of grass and squatted.

  “Good girl.”

  For a few minutes he took her out to the fenced pasture that had been used to hold livestock at the veterinary practice. What Beau liked about the location of the clinic was that it was surrounded by green fields and acres of forest after that—not parking lots and rows of buildings. City living was not for him. Not after going to college there and then working at a clinic. This was home. Country living would always be home for him.

  No other business could build too close, and there was plenty of parking, plenty of room for growth. There was even enough room to build a house back by the edge of the woods, so he could combine his business and his home in one property.

  Thoughts of the house he’d shared with his wife brought no joy, no sense of peace or of belonging. Now, it was just a place to put his belongings, not a place to which he had much attachment. When the business got going he was definitely going to put a house at the edge of the woods and sell the other house.

  Daisy returned shortly, after a romp around the grass, wet with morning dew. “Find any rabbits, girl?” At the mention of rabbits, her ears perked up. “We’d better go back inside, before you find something you really want to chase.”

  They reentered the apartment to the smell of coffee brewing and something mysterious sizzling on the stove.

  “Hope you’re hungry.”

  “I wasn’t hungry until I smelled that.” He leaned closer to the sizzling skillet and inhaled. “Oh, my. What is it? It smells heavenly.”

 
Aurora gave him a smile and stirred. “In my family, we call it stuff.”

  “Why? Doesn’t it deserve a better name than that?”

  “Well, there’s all kinds of stuff in it. I guess it was easier.” She shrugged and continued to stir. “My grandmother made it, and it was passed down from someone else in the family before her. We used to make it before family events, or when the guys would go hunting, things like that.”

  A soft look covered her face as she stirred the ingredients in the skillet.

  “What are you thinking right now?”

  There had been an unguarded moment when she’d talked of her family. Though there had been some trouble with her and her family, he knew she loved her parents.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just...” She shrugged and gave a head-tilt. “It just reminds me of good times when I was growing up. Cousins. Holidays.” She gave him a glance, then returned to stirring. “The age of innocence, you know? The days before you knew what life was really like.”

  “Life can suck sometimes. But other times...” A lump formed in his throat as he looked at the baby on the bed. “It’s more precious than you could ever imagine.”

  She met his gaze then, looking deep into him, trying to see if he’d told her the truth. It was the truth as much as he knew.

  Stepping closer, he took one of her hands in his and gave it a squeeze. “Somehow, deep down, there is hope and joy that pushes away the pain and sorrow. We have to wait sometimes for that to happen. The older I get, the more I realize that timing is everything.”

  He’d seen it. He knew it. He just had to hold on to it through the tough times. Maybe that time for him—for them—was now. Together.

  “Sometimes we wait a long time to be in the right place at the right time to get what we want...what we need.”

  Aurora gave him a watery smile and held his gaze. “I hope you’re right, Beau.”

  “I know I am.” He placed his hand on her shoulder for a quick squeeze. “I also know I’m ready for some of that stuff.” He patted his stomach, which had begun to gnaw a hole in his abdomen. “Is it ready yet? I’m starved.”

  Aurora laughed, and sniffed back that hint of tears he’d seen in her eyes and heard in her voice.

  “Okay. Stuff coming right up.”

  In just a minute she’d dished up a plate full of it, set it and a cup of coffee in front of him—and he’d never been happier with a simple meal, in a tiny apartment, early on a late summer morning.

  After the first bite, he closed his eyes. “Oh, my God. This is fabulous. It definitely needs a better name.”

  A pleased smile appeared on her face and in her eyes. As he watched she even seemed to stand a little taller, too.

  “Is your pain any better this morning?”

  Her eyes popped wide. “Oh, wow. I almost forgot about it!” She leaned to the left, then to the right. “I can’t believe that.”

  “You don’t have to put yourself in pain to realize you’ve been out of pain, you know.” He’d seen many patients do that.

  “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

  She moved her back to the left and right a little more, then laughed in pure joy and it was good to hear.

  “I want to dance now.” She did a little wobbly pirouette, then grabbed onto the counter for stability. “Whoa. I’m a bad ballet dancer, but this is so awesome, Beau.” She grabbed hold of his forearm. “Awesome! This is the first night I’ve slept without pain in months. Months! You have no idea how fantastic this is.”

  “No, I don’t—but I like how fantastic it looks on you.” Had he just said that out loud? “I mean, it’s great that you’re feeling so good and it shows.”

  Clearing his throat, he hoped she hadn’t heard that.

  “I don’t suppose this will last, will it?”

  The vulnerability, the fear and need in her eyes as she stood so close to him, was about all it was going to take for him to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Those boundaries they’d had as kids were gone. He was a man fully grown, and she was no longer the off-limits virgin on a pedestal he’d thought her to be back then. She was beautiful, and ripe, and he wanted her.

  Heat and lust, experience and desire pulsed between them. He felt it. So did she.

  Focusing on the moment, he pushed away those other thoughts that would only lead to trouble for both of them. “It will last, Aurora. As long as you continue to strengthen, and stretch, and do the work you need to do, it will last. The work will be life-long, though.”

  “Well...” She looked away again and took a step back from him, reached for her coffee with a trembling hand. “It’s like any new habit or new thing you do, right? You have to work at it until it’s second nature.”

  “Right.”

  He was glad she’d moved back. Each of them was vulnerable in different ways, and to put those two together would be a powder keg of heat and sex he didn’t think either of them was ready for just yet.

  “You’ll be fine.” He glanced at Chloe, who still slept, one finger in her mouth. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go downstairs and shower while she’s asleep. I’ve got spare clothes in the car, so I’ll grab those.”

  “No problem. But what about Daisy? She needs some food, too.”

  At the mention of her name, that long tail of hers began to thump on the floor.

  “Right. Well, I guess I’ll pack up the whole gang and—”

  “No—wait. What I’m trying to say is...why don’t you go home and shower, change, and bring back Daisy’s food? She can stay here, then be with us at the clinic so she’s not lonely at home all by herself.”

  “Bring her to the clinic? Seriously?”

  But other healthcare businesses had mascots or resident animals, and Daisy was as well-behaved as any of them...

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” He looked down at his beloved canine. “She’s certainly got the temperament for it.”

  “Go. I’ll hang out with the gang while you go have a peaceful shower for once.”

  “Aurora, you’ve no idea what you’ve done.”

  The relief that flooded through him was monumental. He hadn’t had a moment of peace—not really—since Chloe was born. There had been so much to do and not enough time to do it. Things like leisurely showers had been cut to the bone.

  “What?” Her eyes widened with worry. “What did I do?”

  “You’re about to make yourself indispensable to me.” He was not kidding.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not meaning to. If that’s a problem I can stop, and you can do it all yourself.”

  Though the words were not what he wanted to hear, he could see the teasing light in her eyes and the grin about to burst across her face.

  “No. No, thank you.” That humor of hers was infectious. “I’ll take indispensable any time.”

  With a last glance at Chloe, he headed out the door, with a lightness to his footsteps and in his heart that had been absent just yesterday.

  In an hour he was back and ready to go. Daisy was fed and walked again. Chloe ate some of the “stuff” that Aurora had made, and he was about to take her to Ginny’s house for the day.

  For the first time in a long while all was right in his world.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHEN BEAU LEFT with Daisy, to take Chloe to the sitter, Aurora took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to blow away the feelings swirling inside her. Having company on her first night in the new place had been good, but it had made her think of things best left alone. Surges of her teenage dreams, of having a family of her own, had emerged. Thoughts of being married, having her own children. Things she thought she’d put away long ago.

  She was certain her mind was playing tricks on her, and she hadn’t seen that flash of interest in Beau’s eyes—that he
hadn’t been drawing closer to her more than once.

  Perhaps it was because she’d been stuck in the rehab center for two months and she was lonely, or needed to reconnect with her friends. There were so many other reasons why she’d begun to think of Beau in a way she hadn’t for a long, long time. Not simply that he’d wanted her. Confidence in her womanhood, her sexuality, had been destroyed by her ex. Beau was the first man to look at her like he was interested, like he found her attractive, and that was heady stuff. Her ego stood a little straighter.

  Be that as it may, at the moment she could barely take care of herself, so she needed to cut it out right now. Focus only on why she was here in Brush Valley, on the fact that she was only here temporarily.

  Everything about her life was temporary.

  Everything about Beau’s life was permanent.

  Having some sort of unfulfillable fantasy about a man and a baby being plopped down into the middle of her life and rescuing her from herself was just ludicrous.

  She’d worked hard to get out of Pennsylvania, to make a life for herself elsewhere. Letting a few weeks and some idealistic fantasy about her and Beau ruin all of that wasn’t going to happen. This was not her life.

  She took a few breaths and blew them out. Again.

  When she arrived at the clinic she realized she didn’t have a key to get in, but knew Beau would be back shortly.

  “Add that to the list of things I need to do. Get a key to the clinic.”

  Pushing aside those fanciful thoughts of having a relationship with Beau, she focused on the here and now.

  A car arrived with two people in it, and Beau pulled in right behind them, with Daisy hanging out the back window. She barked once when she saw Aurora, which made her laugh, and the tone of her heart changed in an instant. Life was good right now, and Aurora relaxed. The day was beautiful, with the sun warm and shining, a light breeze lifted her hair and teased her cheek. Even though this time was temporary, there was no reason she couldn’t enjoy it.