simply a great-looking, single guy she’d happened to meet and might want to get acquainted with. This man already seemed disgusted with her merely by association. That disgust wasn’t going to be improved when he found out the second reason she’d come to Northbridge. No matter how he looked. Or smelled. She needed not to forget that.
Even so, she couldn’t help thinking that although she hadn’t considered her sister capable of good taste in men, she had to acknowledge that this particular man proved Lea did have some. Either that, or she’d been uncommonly lucky.
Karis went down the remainder of the steps, making sure her footfalls announced her presence.
When Luke Walker heard her coming, those impressive shoulders drew back slightly and he took a step out of the doorway as if he’d been caught.
“Trying to see if she looks like you?” Karis asked as she joined him.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“What do you think?”
“I think she looks like you—reddish hair, pale skin, button nose, big baby-blue eyes… Maybe she isn’t Amy at all. Maybe she’s yours and you’re trumping up this whole thing to get rid of your own kid.”
So today wasn’t going to be any better than last night, Karis thought.
“That’s definitely what I’m doing. You caught me. And here I thought you were a plain cop instead of a detective,” she said sarcastically.
She went into the nursery then, to her niece, bypassing the man at the door.
“An Kras!” Amy greeted when she saw her, using her fifteen-month-old version of Aunt Karis.
“Good morning, sweetie.”
Bringing her elephant with her, Amy stood and hung on to the crib’s rail with her free hand, giving a bit of a bounce to let Karis know she wanted out.
Karis didn’t hesitate to oblige, picking her up and settling the baby on her hip.
“Hi,” Amy said then, spotting Luke Walker.
Karis saw that he was taken aback by the baby’s acknowledgment of him.
He didn’t respond immediately, though, and Karis wondered if he was going to ignore Amy. If he did, Karis’s estimation of him would go rapidly downhill and she waited to see what he would do.
But after a moment he said, “Hi.” And then he saved himself from Karis’s blacklist by actually coming into the room.
“So…she talks?” he said, not getting too close.
“Only a few words, but she’s starting to get the hang of it.”
He pointed to the well-loved elephant. “What’s this?” he asked Amy in a much, much more gentle tone of voice than anything he’d used with Karis.
“Eddy,” Amy informed him.
“Eddy?” he repeated. “Is that your elephant’s name—Eddy? Eddy the elephant?”
“I think it’s just short for elephant and the best she can do with it for now,” Karis supplied.
“Eddy,” Amy said again, as if they were both wrong but without giving any clue as to how.
“Shall we change your diaper?” Karis asked the baby.
Amy didn’t answer. She merely continued staring at Luke Walker, who stared back.
Karis let them have their moment. She knew Luke Walker was still looking for signs of himself in the small child. While she didn’t know what exactly about him had Amy’s rapt attention, she was at least glad to see that her niece wasn’t shy the way she sometimes was around strangers.
“I wonder if she recognizes you,” Karis said, thinking out loud.
“She was five weeks old the last time she saw me. I’m sure she doesn’t remember.”
“Probably not,” Karis confirmed. “But she’s usually more standoffish with strangers.”
Luke Walker surprised her then by holding out his arms to Amy. “Will you come and see me?”
That was where Amy’s friendliness stopped. She reared back, wrapped her free arm around Karis’s neck with a vise grip, and managed to hold the elephant against her with her forearm while getting her two middle fingers to her mouth. She smacked Karis in the face with Eddy in the process.
“What did I tell you?” Luke Walker said, as if he’d proved something.
By the time Karis had found her way out from behind the elephant, he’d turned and was headed for the door again.
“Will you both eat eggs for breakfast, or does she still need baby food or something?” he asked.
Were they all going to have breakfast together?
Karis hadn’t thought about meals or him providing her food. She certainly hadn’t thought of him cooking for her. It seemed strange to accept his offer as if she were an honored guest when she was anything but.
“You don’t have to do that. I mean, for me. But yes, Amy eats table food now—what you can get her to eat—and eggs are one of the things she likes, if you want to fix her one. If you don’t, I packed some—”
“I think I can probably scramble eggs for both of you,” he said as if she were making a bigger deal out of it than was necessary.
Or was this a glimmer of hospitality or almost-congeniality that might indicate that he wasn’t going to be a bear forever?
Hoping so, Karis softened her own attitude and said, “That would be nice. Thanks.”
“They’ll be ready shortly. Unless you want to eat them cold.”
So much for hospitality or congeniality.
Still, as Karis watched him go, she realized that the idea of having breakfast with him wasn’t altogether awful, and that alarmed her slightly.
He doesn’t like me and he’s not going to like me more when he finds out the rest, she reminded herself.
Keeping that firmly in mind, she took Amy to the changing table to put the baby in a dry diaper.
And to put Luke Walker in his place as nothing but an afterthought.
Chapter Three
“So…what do you think about Amy and I going up the hill to the Pratt house this afternoon to tell them about Dad…and Lea?” Karis ventured a short time later as she, Amy and Luke were eating the eggs, bacon, toast and juice he’d prepared for them all.
“You know their house is up the street?” Luke asked.
Since Karis had brought Amy downstairs, set her on the floor and pitched in to help, he hadn’t been friendly, but he’d been marginally
