Buch lesen: «Beginning With Baby»

Chapter One

When Phoebe Finley felt compelled to say those all-important words for the first time in her twenty-four years of life, the setting was near perfect.

It was past midnight on the first of August, and the moon hung in the sky, as fat and ripe as summer fruit. Ready for wishing, the stars glistened as if newly washed. A breeze, warm and scented with night-blooming jasmine, meandered through the open window of her third-story apartment, the air teasing the white lace of her sleeveless, sheer batiste nightgown.

Crickets provided the musical score, but it was just a rhythm really, the pulse beat of this once-in-a-lifetime moment.

Phoebe held Rex close in her arms, he was awake, too, and the emotion just came out of nowhere to overwhelm her—kidnapping her, so to speak—filling her heart until she just had to say the words or she might pop.

“I think I’m in lo—”

No! Her mouth shut on the dangerous phrase with an audible snap. She had no business even thinking such a thing, let alone saying it.

Rex looked at her quizzically, then yawned, and she found the gesture so adorable and so fascinating she knew she was one toenail away from deep, dark, trouble.

“I gotta find your daddy, Rex,” she said aloud to the two-month-old in her arms, her two-month-old baby nephew, her stepbrother’s son. “I gotta find your daddy before I make a big mistake.”

Keeping the infant against her, she clambered out of bed and crossed the bedroom floor to the living room of the divided-up Victorian house she called home. Phoebe didn’t even bother glancing toward the crib set up in the corner. Like his father before him, Rex was a night owl.

On the small dining room table was the computer she used in her medical transcribing business, her printer and a telephone. The baby tucked firmly in the curve of one arm, she picked up the receiver and used her thumb to dial her younger stepbrother’s number. “Please, please, please answer,” she whispered, as she listened to the ring. Of course Rex’s daddy hadn’t picked up any of the times she’d called in the last fourteen days, but Phoebe was an optimist by nature, and this was an emergency of the first order.

Her very heart was at stake.

It nearly stopped when she heard the telltale click of an answer. “Teddy—”

A robotic voice broke in. “I’m sorry. You’ve reached a number that is out of service or has been disconnected.”

“What?” Phoebe squeaked.

“Please check your number and dial again.”

“Okay, okay.” Phoebe inhaled a calming breath, pressed the disconnect button and tried once more.

The second time, the tinny voice hadn’t lost one iota of its patience. “Please check your number and dial again.”

Phoebe bit off a moan. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, Rex,” she said to her nephew, hanging up the phone.

But Rex didn’t appear worried in the slightest. As a matter of fact, if anything, a new wrinkle on his forehead said he might even be a little miffed at her.

“It’s not that I want to get rid of you, sweetheart,” she assured him. “It’s just that…”

I never want to let you go.

Phoebe moaned a second time, the unspoken thought spurring her once more to locate Rex’s father. After Teddy had dropped off the baby two weeks ago “Just for the afternoon. A little time to get my head together,” she hadn’t been surprised when dinner came and went and Teddy didn’t show. Teddy’s girlfriend, Rex’s mother, had died of an aneurysm just hours after the baby’s birth. Teddy had been as unprepared for grief as he’d been for single fatherhood.

But then three days went by, three days during which she’d contacted any friend or acquaintance of Teddy’s she could bring to mind. Nobody had a clue where he might be. Talk about panic…. But then, on one of her rare trips out of the house, Teddy had called and left a message on her answering machine. He was fine, and he was certain Rex was, too. “Just a little more time,” he wanted. “Maybe a month.” And then, then, they’d “figure out what to do with the baby.”

Phoebe squeezed shut her eyes and drew Rex closer to her heart. Figure out what to do! That had to happen now.

Upper left, lower right, middle, middle, middle. Her thumb continued the pattern she’d come to memorize that would dial the number of Teddy’s closest friend. Busy. Curses!

Think, she told herself, think. Her hand trembling a little, she opened her phone book and flipped through the pages. Was there something she’d missed? Someone who might know where Teddy was, someone she might have forgotten the first time?

And like an omen, there it was, right below Mid-coast College, where she was enrolled to finish her accounting degree come September. Natalie Minton, a friend of Teddy’s since high school. Phoebe remembered she’d been unable to reach the young woman when Teddy went missing two weeks before.

Steeling herself to ignore the late hour, Phoebe dialed the number, simultaneously jiggling Rex, who’d started to whimper ominously. “Shh, shh,” she said. After several rings, someone answered.

“’Lo.”

“Natalie. This is Phoebe Finley. Teddy’s sister.” Though they were technically stepsiblings, Teddy’s father had adopted her after marrying Phoebe’s mother. “I’m sorry to bother you, but have you seen Teddy recently?”

“Huh?”

“Teddy,” Phoebe said again, rocking from foot to foot as the baby whimpered louder. “I’m looking for Teddy.”

“Who’s that crying?”

Phoebe swallowed. “It’s Rex. You know, Teddy’s baby. Have you seen him?”

There was a sleepy pause. “I think I saw the baby at the funeral. Didn’t Teddy bring him to Angela’s funeral?”

Rex cried louder, and Phoebe brought him up against her shoulder. “No, Natalie,” she said patiently. “I’m asking if you’ve seen Teddy.”

The voice became somewhat more alert. “He’s boogied out of town? He really did it and stuck you with the kid?”

Something about Natalie’s near-instant grasp of the situation made Phoebe nervous. “Did he talk to you about this?”

“Uh-huh,” she grunted affirmatively. “Said he could count on you to take the baby in. Even thought about giving you the baby for good.”

As if he could hear the conversation himself, Rex really started to cry in earnest. Phoebe rubbed his back and squeezed shut her eyes again. “Anything else, Natalie? Did Teddy say anything else or do you know where he might be?”

Over Rex’s unhappiness, Phoebe could barely make out Natalie’s sleepy “Uh-uh.”

Knowing the apartment walls were paper-thin, and pretty sure the other woman didn’t have any additional information, Phoebe said a quick goodbye in order to turn all her attention to the baby. She held him against her and started pacing, after two weeks sure that he wouldn’t be comforted until she’d racked up a couple of miles of hardwood floor.

Even thought about giving you the baby for good.

With Rex calming down, Natalie’s words finally had a chance to sink in.

Did Teddy really mean it?

And what would Phoebe do if it were so?

Taking a breath, she reined in her galloping pulse. “We need to discuss this rationally,” she told Rex, who blinked at her owlishly as she rounded the corner of the living room for another lap. His mind was easy to read.

“I know, I know. I’ve always been more emotional than rational, it’s true.”

And idealistic and romantic and eager to give her heart.

She licked her dry lips. “But we could do this, Rex, we could make it happen. My work is already flexible, and I could get it done around your schedule.”

There was school, too, of course, but she could postpone completing her degree if she had to, or look into day care on campus. She only had classes scheduled two days a week anyhow. And with her landlady and some of her fellow tenants less than enthusiastic about how easily the sounds of a baby carried through their thin walls day and night, it might be prudent to leave her apartment a couple of times a week.

“See, Rex? School and work taken care of.”

He didn’t appear totally convinced, instead he narrowed his eyes speculatively, as if he still had one important question to pose.

“Well, there is that.” Really and truly bringing a child into her life probably meant—at the very least—postponing romance. And she harbored some very old-fashioned, and very specific dreams on that subject.

She’d been waiting all her life for the man who “clicked”—her code for the man she believed would come along and be recognized by her heart and soul. No doubt having Rex permanently with her would affect that plan.

“But I’m twenty-four and I’ve not caught a glimpse of him yet, Rex.” Oh, there’d been dates and all, but she was determined to find the kind of love her mother had found with her stepfather. So far that had remained elusive. And Rex was right here, right now, needing her.

As if the baby was satisfied with her answer, his eyes finally drifted shut, his incredibly miraculous lashes resting against his soft, plump cheeks.

Unwilling to let go of him just yet, Phoebe sat carefully on the flowered love seat. Despite her tiredness, she just looked at him, marveling at every tiny perfection, and that oh-so-dangerous emotion she’d felt before flooded back into her heart and expanded it with equal parts pain and pleasure.

The click. She would be saying goodbye to that notion if she committed herself to Rex. But she had just as many strong and good reasons—reasons also rooted in her past—to want to provide the baby with a loving home.

It was Rex who was clicking now.

He whimpered a little in his sleep, and she snuggled him closer. “I love you,” she said, letting the words out freely this time. “I’m here.”

Then she allowed herself to say something else, something big and something important, though between the sentiment and the reality stood a whole laundry list of problems: absent fathers, acute-eared neighbors, landladies with a thing about single mothers. She said it, anyway, because it just seemed right. “Mommy’s here.”

Next door that baby was crying again. Jackson Abbott tried to ignore the plaintive sound and fall back asleep.

It wasn’t working.

Nearly every noise penetrated the thin wall between his apartment and the one next door. Either it was the baby crying or the disturbingly soft voice of his neighbor patiently placating it.

A warm, afternoon breeze filled the coarse muslin curtains in his bedroom and then disappeared, snapping the thick material against the sill. It wasn’t soothing, either.

Another infant cry drilled through the drywall. Whoever had divided the old three-story Victorian house into separate apartments had spared the expenses wherever possible. Though the month-to-month agreement he had with the landlady-owner suited his purposes for the moment, this place wasn’t constructed for the long-term comfort of a man whose work required him to sleep while the rest of the world went about their business.

The baby cried again, and Jackson sighed. The thing was, that baby was hard to ignore. Not only its often-dissatisfied wailing and the murmur of his neighbor’s patient and sweet voice trying to calm it, but the existence of the child itself.

Babies had a way of getting to him.

This one unwillingly piqued his curiosity, too. He’d been here in Strawberry Bay a month, and was due to stay five weeks more. The first part of his stay, his neighbor had been blissfully quiet. She did something on a computer most of the day—the clickety-clack of keys was a dead giveaway—with only a phone call or two as punctuation.

Then, something like fourteen days ago, the baby had entered her life.

Their lives.

He punched his pillow, trying to soften the damn thing as he listened to the baby cry some more. Where had it come from? He’d caught a glimpse or two of the woman next door, and she hadn’t looked pregnant. Furthermore, unless the HMOs had that drive-through baby delivery thing really in place, the woman hadn’t been away from her apartment long enough to produce an infant in the usual way.

Jackson groaned through his teeth. What did it matter? He shouldn’t be caring about neighbors or their babies. For years he’d made it his practice to avoid such entanglements. What he cared about was sleep. God knew he’d need it on the job tonight.

The night shift was hell, but he’d been at it for more than two years and would be at it for an indefinite number more. Between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. was the only possible time to shut down even the least-crowded of California’s highways. Then he and his crew could go about the work of retrofitting the overpasses to better withstand the earthquakes that were a certain part of California’s future.

The baby wailed again and his neighbor’s voice counterpointed the sound, her tone soothing and soft. Jackson’s eyelids popped open, and he stared up at the ceiling.

Damn! He never had trouble sleeping during the day, just like he never had trouble moving on to the next assignment, working there for a few months and then moving on again.

He was suited to the night just as he was suited to the wandering life.

The curtains flapped once more. The baby cried. The woman’s soft voice spoke. There were seven hairline cracks in the ceiling’s plaster. The baby cried again.

Jackson gritted his teeth. Sure, he could go next door and complain, but he preferred keeping to himself—avoiding confrontation as well as ties. Life worked better for him that way.

He worked better that way.

The night suited him, the wandering life did, too.

Another infant sound forced him to flop onto his stomach and pull the pillow over his head. Sleep. Now. He’d be damned if anything—either the plaintive noise of a child or the soft voice of a woman—was going to change him.

He would not get involved.

But at 7:30 the next morning, Jackson unlaced the heavy construction boot on his left foot to the unhappy and unsurprising accompaniment of a baby crying. The sound echoed inside the empty place in his chest, unignorable and disturbing. He didn’t need this, not after working all night and then holing up for an extra hour in the hot tin can of an office trailer to write and then fax a report to the company headquarters in Los Angeles.

Closing his eyes, he dropped his boot to the floor and flopped back against the bed’s mattress. He hadn’t slept much yesterday, and with the baby’s cries now ratcheting several notches louder, he doubted he’d enter dreamland anytime soon. The woman’s voice next door started murmuring again, but the baby didn’t respond to her soft hum.

Setting his back teeth, Jackson tried to force the sounds from his head. But the baby’s noise continued and he curled his fingers into the worn bedspread to keep himself still.

What did he think he could do, anyway? Go next door and make it right, make it better? He knew, only too well, what a failure he’d be at that.

Enough. Jackson sat up and impatiently pulled at the laces on his right boot. It was time to get some sleep. Lack of the stuff was making him vulnerable to thoughts he’d buried long ago. The boot dropped to the floor, its thud nearly drowned by the noise from next door.

Cranky baby. Sweet woman voice.

Damn! And it was hot in here, too. He pulled the tails of his work shirt from the waistband of his ancient jeans and quickly unbuttoned it.

Then the baby cried louder, the woman’s voice hit a concerned note and Jackson finally lost it.

He had to get some quiet!

His feet slid back into his boots, and with determined, swift strides he crossed through the bedroom and living room. Pulling open his front door, he took a breath and glared at the one next to his. In the minuscule hallway the sounds from the neighboring apartment were just as loud.

Another hot spurt of irritation ran through him. He disliked being forced into making the contact almost as much as the noise itself.

But he steeled himself—he deserved some sleep!—and knocked. He would just tell the woman to keep it down and then turn around and go back to his own place and hit the sack.

It didn’t take long for the door to swing open.

Jackson blinked.

This couldn’t be right.

The right apartment, maybe.

The right woman—definitely not.

But there was an infant against her shoulder, and as he stared she tried soothing its fussiness with that familiar, sweet voice. She flicked a glance his way from eyes the clear bluish-gray of a dawn sky, fringed by lashes as dark as the night in which he felt so at home.

Hell. He shifted on his feet, a dull, embarrassed burn heating his neck. Poetry. She had him thinking poetry! He was embarrassed, too, that he was half-dressed, bear-grouchy and completely flummoxed at the sight of her.

“Yes?” that melodious voice asked warily.

He still stared, his mouth unable to move. Her eyes were beautiful, sure. Her voice no surprise. But what had Jackson’s jaw scraping his knees was the rest of the package.

Flowery dress, its hem brushing neat anklet socks folded tidily above pristine Keds. Long, dark hair that waved past her shoulders. Round cheeks, smooth skin, a mouth that looked kiss swollen but that he would wager had never been touched.

He’d never seen a woman who looked so…so…innocent.

Hell. So innocent, that he’d really blush if he had to tell her how that fretful baby she held against her fine body was made.

She threw him another nervous glance and started gently jiggling the baby as it cried harder. “Yes?” she asked again.

He couldn’t think. Beyond her he could see half her living area—a laptop computer was set up on the small dining table—and half her kitchen, where a bottle was warming in a pan on the stove.

Unlike the utilitarian white-on-white of his own apartment, hers was painted a soft-peach and cream. Five or six framed family photos took up one wall.

But none of this observation was getting the job done. Gritting his back teeth, he lowered his brow and put on his best thunderous expression—with his dark hair and eyes, he hoped he looked as dangerously annoyed as he felt.

“Excuse me,” he started, his voice a rumble.

She gulped.

He gestured toward his half-open door. “I…”

Her nervousness suddenly disappeared. “You’re my neighbor!” she exclaimed in friendly relief, obviously just realizing that fact. A smile broke over her face.

For some stupid reason he thought about the dawn again, and he could only watch as she reached her hand toward him. Her smile widened and that hand waved him forward. “Come in, come in.” She stepped back in welcome, all the while patting the noisy and unhappy baby.

In the face of all that friendliness, what could a man do? He let himself walk out of the dim hallway into the light of her apartment.

Just inside, he hesitated. Damn. It would have been better to voice his complaint in the neutral territory outside her door. But another loud squall from the baby had him squaring his shoulders. “I’m Jackson Abbott. I came over because—”

“I’m so glad you did!” She fished in her pocket for a pacifier, which the baby quickly tongued away. “I’ve been meaning to introduce myself and welcome you.” Another smile dug a dimple into one of her smooth cheeks. “I’m Phoebe Finley.”

Then, still trying to calm the baby, Phoebe Finley started rocking from foot to foot, and, following her with his gaze, Jackson went a little seasick. Fighting the queasiness kept him quiet for another crucial moment.

Crucial, because it gave her a chance to talk again first.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you, too,” she said.

His stomach dropped. Thank me?

Her body stopped moving, and she scooped the baby higher in her arms. “But as you can see I’ve been busy.”

Okay, the perfect opening, Jackson thought, preparing again to voice the complaint on his tongue. But the way she held the infant gave him his first full shot of the source of his sleeplessness. Instead of getting to the point right away, he stared at the baby and the baby stared back.

When Jackson’s mouth did finally open, he found himself talking to the infant. “Hey, little—” he narrowed his gaze and tried to make sense of the genderless shape she held, dressed in yellow terry cloth “—it.” A thick diaper covered the obvious parts. Its head was hairless, but Jackson remembered that both girl and boy babies were bald.

That happy dimple dug into Phoebe’s cheek again, as if she approved of men who greeted infants. “This is Rex. My brother’s baby boy.” She took a step toward Jackson, her tone confiding. “And the reason why I need to thank you.”

“Thank me for what?” Jackson asked gruffly, focusing on the dark sweep of Phoebe’s left eyebrow to keep his eyes off the baby and all of Phoebe’s smooth skin.

“For not complaining about the noise, of course!”

His gut dropped again, and his throat closed over a loud groan. “The noise?” he choked out.

The baby started crying once more, and she laid him against her shoulder and started bouncing on her heels. “You must have heard it,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” he said faintly.

“Well, every tenant and his houseplant is complaining. Thanks to you, I’ve been able to point out to our landlady, several times, that if you aren’t bothered, then why should anyone else be?”

Jackson swallowed. “Yes. Why.” Why was he such an idiot? Why hadn’t he come over and ranted and raved on day one? “Is your…is your brother visiting you…for a short while?” he asked hopefully.

A funny expression crossed her face. “Well, uh, no. Just Rex. For the next month, at least. Maybe longer.”

Another month? Nearly his whole time left in Strawberry Bay! Great. If the baby fussed for the next few weeks the way he had for the last two, Jackson didn’t have a bunny’s chance in the fast lane of getting any sleep.

But then his eyebrows snapped together. Another month? This didn’t make sense.

She seemed to read the puzzlement on his face. “It’s a trifle, um, complicated. Rex’s mother died right after he was born, and my brother needed a little time away. I’m…filling in.” Looking down at the baby, she brushed a soft kiss over his head.

It wasn’t a “filling in” kind of kiss. It wasn’t a “filling in” kind of look in her eyes, either.

But he wasn’t there to assess, judge or, dammit, appreciate, even though he found himself fascinated by her lush and innocent mouth again.

Her tone turned confiding once more, and she smiled, obviously happy. “You’ve been so kind and tolerant, I don’t mind letting you be the first to know I hope to keep Rex with me forever.”

Jackson’s brain came to a screeching halt. “What?”

She cleared her throat. “Well, right now my brother is kind of, um, missing, but he’s going to come back, and then we’ll settle the custody of the baby.”

Still reeling, Jackson opened his mouth to set her straight. Someone needed to tell Pollyanna here that happy endings like the one she wanted were only in fairy tales. People had a way of going out of one’s life—under their own steam or because they were torn from you. In his thirty years he’d experienced both.

But then his mouth snapped closed. None of this was his business or the reason he’d knocked on her door. “Listen,” he started. Hell, what was he going to say now? Could he really burst even the smallest of her fantasy bubbles by griping about the kid? “I came over because—”

At the sound of Jackson’s voice, the baby started squalling again. Phoebe patted, shushed, rocked, but nothing worked.

Accepting defeat, actually a little glad about it, Jackson shuffled backward. Much easier to hit the nearest discount store for earplugs and a white-noise machine.

But Phoebe wasn’t having it. She reached out and caught his sleeve, obviously determined to be the good neighbor, at least in this. “Did you come to borrow something?” she asked, pitching her voice over the baby’s crying.

“Some sleep,” Jackson muttered.

“Something sweet?”

He threw up his hands. With the baby crying and her morning eyes on him, he couldn’t put more trouble on her plate. “Yeah,” he conceded. “I came over to borrow some sugar.”

“Oh, certainly,” Phoebe said, with another one of those sunny smiles.

And that’s when it happened.

She cast a look toward her kitchen.

Cast another at the crying child.

He read the difficulty on her face. How to get that sugar and soothe baby Rex, too? Ironic, when Jackson didn’t even want the stuff.

But letting her get something for him seemed the fastest way out of there, so, for the first time in what seemed like forever, he volunteered for child duty. “Give him to me,” he said.

She hesitated, but probably figured Rex couldn’t be any less content. With careful movements, she transferred the baby to him. At the sensation of the warm, vulnerable weight in his arms, Jackson sucked in a sharp breath.