any good. She keeps spitting it out.”
As soon as Abby placed the pacifier in the baby’s mouth and cradled her close, Sunnie’s crying began to lessen. “Do you have a rocking chair?” Abby asked.
All she had to do was walk in the door and take the baby from him and Sunnie reduced the racket she was making by a good ten decibels. “What the hell does she have that I don’t?” he muttered under his breath, as he laid Abby’s coat and purse on a bench in the hall, then led the way to the family room.
Motioning toward the new rocking chair he’d bought the day before bringing Sunnie home from Sheila and Zeke’s, Brad stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and watched as Abby seated herself and began to gently rock the baby. In no time at all Sunnie’s cries had settled to occasional whimpers and he could tell she was about to go to sleep.
“When I tried rocking her, she just screamed louder,” he said, unable to keep from feeling a bit resentful. The immediate change in the baby when Abby took her made him feel completely inept, and it annoyed him beyond words that she had been witness to it.
“I think the problem is that you’re nervous about taking care of her without help.” Abby shifted Sunnie from her shoulder to the crook of her arm. “She senses that.”
“I don’t get nervous,” he said flatly. Frowning, he stubbornly shook his head. “I might feel a little apprehensive about being solely responsible for her care, but I’m not the nervous type.”
Abby laughed softly. “Apprehension, nervousness, whatever you want to call it, I think she’s picking up on it and she’s letting you know the only way she can that it upsets her.”
Feeling a little insulted, he glared at the woman calmly rocking his niece. “So you’re saying it’s my fault she wouldn’t stop crying?”
Her indulgent smile as she shook her head had him clenching his teeth. “Not entirely. I think a big part of her problem is that she’s fighting to stay awake.”
Brad grunted. “I’d rather fight for sleep than against it.”
She nodded. “Me, too. But with each day Sunnie is becoming more alert and aware of what’s going on around her. I think she’s probably afraid she’ll miss something.”
While Abby rocked the baby, Brad went into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee and see if there was some of Juanita’s apple cake left. The least he could do was offer Abby cake and coffee for bringing the noise level down. When he returned to the family room, Sunnie was sound asleep.
“I don’t think we should risk waking her when you pick her up,” Abby said, her tone low.
“Good God, no.” Just the thought of another crying marathon like the one that had just ended made him cringe.
Rising from the chair, she smiled. “If you’ll tell me where the nursery is, I’ll put her to bed for you.”
He led the way up the stairs to the bedroom he’d turned into a nursery and couldn’t help but notice how natural Abby looked with a baby in her arms. If any woman was meant to mother a child, it was Abigail Langley. It bothered him to think she wasn’t going to give herself that chance.
He had come to fatherhood through adoption. She could reach motherhood that way, too. All she had to do was open herself to the possibility. But she apparently wasn’t ready to consider her options and it wasn’t his place to point out what they were.
While she put Sunnie to bed in the crib, he turned on the camera and picked up the video baby monitor to take with them. “Thank you for stopping by,” he said once they’d left the nursery and were descending the stairs. “It seems like you’ve had to come to my rescue twice today.”
She gave him a questioning look. “Since Sunnie is wearing a dry diaper, I assume you mastered that challenge?”
Nodding, he grinned. “It turned out to be a lot easier than getting her to bed for the night.” When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he asked, “Would you like to stay for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake?”
“I… should go and let you enjoy the quiet,” she said, walking over to the bench where he had laid her coat and purse earlier. “If you have any more problems you can always call me.”
Before she had a chance to pick up her things, he placed his hand to the small of her back and ushered Abby toward the family room. “To tell you the truth, I could use the company of another adult for a little while. As you’ve seen this evening, Sunnie isn’t exactly a witty conversationalist just yet.”
“No, but you have to admit, she gets her point across,” Abby said, smiling.
“No kidding.” He rubbed the side of his head. “I’m still experiencing some ringing in my left ear.”
When they went into the family room, she sat down on the edge of the couch. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll pass on the cake and coffee. If I drink caffeine now, I’ll be up all night.”
“Would you like something else?” He walked over to turn on the gas log in the fireplace. “I think there are some soft drinks in the fridge.”
Abby shook her head. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“I’d offer you something stronger, but since I don’t drink, I don’t keep it around the house.”
Brad’s sister, Sadie, had told her that he never drank anything stronger than coffee or iced tea, due to the fact that their older brother, Michael, had been an alcoholic, as well as a drug addict. It had ultimately led to the man’s death when, in a drug and alcohol induced haze, he’d crashed through a guardrail and driven over the side of a cliff.
“I’m not much of a drinker, either,” she admitted. “I might have an occasional glass of wine with dinner, but that’s about it.”
Brad sank into the big, overstuffed armchair flanking the couch. “Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against drinking in moderation. It’s when a person doesn’t know when to quit that it becomes a problem.”
“Like it did for your brother?” she asked.
He nodded. “Mike had a rebellious streak a mile wide and would do anything he could think of to humiliate our dad. What better way to do it than to become the town drunk?”
She could tell Brad resented the fact that his brother had gone out of his way to humiliate the Price family. She could sympathize. In her senior year in high school she had suffered through her own family’s scandal, and knowing they were the subject of intense gossip and speculation had been one of the worst times in her life.
“A lot of kids go through a reckless stage,” she offered gently. “I’m sure Michael never meant for it to become the huge problem that it did for him.”
“You’re probably right. Unfortunately, Mike never seemed to be able to come out of that phase and it just got worse when Dad disowned him.”
Two years older than she and Brad, all she could remember about Michael Price was that he had a reputation for partying hard and raising hell. “Was your dad disowning him the reason he left Royal?”
“Dad
