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.
Rex’s crying immediately stopped.
Darkish eyes stared up at Jackson. A tiny fist waved about as if controlled by a mad puppeteer.
Jackson concluded the kid was stunned by its first closeup of an overworked male in serious need of eight hours of hibernation. But even after a few moments, the crying didn’t restart. The baby’s movements actually calmed, and as Jackson hitched him closer to his chest, Rex appeared to fall asleep.
More irony. Of the two of them, the wailer was the one getting the rest.
He looked across at Phoebe. She was staring at them, apparently stunned.
Jackson lifted his shoulders in a small shrug, more than a little surprised himself. Yeah, in the past he’d had a way with kids. But who could have guessed that after fourteen years without use, it was the one thing he hadn’t left behind.
Chapter Two
Jackson was out of his boots and into his breakfast the next morning when he heard a knock at his door.
He knew who it was, which was why he took another swig of cola instead of going to answer it. Through the walls Rex cried again—the baby had sounded unhappy ever since Jackson had returned from work. And even though it was just after six, he suspected the baby had been awake for some time. The knock came again, percussion to Rex’s noisy discontent.
It was Phoebe Finley and the baby at his door, of course, and he planned on ignoring them until they went away. He didn’t want to encourage any neighborly tête-à-têtes, any more than he wanted to find himself close to that baby again.
Once was enough.
Becoming acquainted with Phoebe and the child who wasn’t hers—but that she obviously cared so much for—was a scenario much too close for comfort. He’d been in her size sixes before, desperately wanting to hold on to someone—in his case, someones—who could be wrenched away.
Jackson wasn’t stupid enough to get entangled, even peripherally, in that kind of setup again.
The baby must have paused to take in a breath, because in the
