indeed. She probably thought all she had to do was cook a meal and wash my laundry, and I’d be putty in her hands. Well it didn’t work, did it, Maree? We told her where to get off, didn’t we?”
Hearing her name, the baby looked up, but at the sight of his furious expression, she screwed up her face and dissolved into tears and started banging a plastic cup disconsolately against the bars of her playpen, the sound keeping time with her wails.
Despair coiled through Nicholas. Now look what the wretched woman had done, he thought. She’d managed to upset the baby, just when he’d gotten her quiet and happy. He leaned over the side of the pen, reaching for the child. “Come here, little darling. Don’t cry. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at Bethany.”
At the sound of the name, Maree’s tear-filled eyes widened and she began to beat at Nicholas’s chest. “Ah, ah, ah,” she screamed, punctuating the sounds with blows.
He regarded the baby curiously. “Bethany? You’re telling me you like Bethany?”
Every time he said the name, there was a fresh gurgle of “ah, ah, ah” sounds.
He shook his head. “Trust me, we’re better off without her. Just because she happens to be damnably attractive—” He broke off as Bethany’s image filled his mind. She was attractive, he realized. He couldn’t recall seeing hair that exact shade of gold before, as if it was perpetually in sunlight. She had nice eyes, too, now he came to think about it. They reminded him of the sky on a summer day. Odd that all the comparisons he could think of related to sunshine.
Her voice was unusual, too, faintly musical and pitched in the lower register, which appealed to his trained ear. When she laughed he could hear wind chimes. He wouldn’t mind recording and analyzing her voice. He was willing to bet even the wavelengths would be picturesque.
“Not that I have any such intentions,” he told Maree severely, annoyed with himself for letting his thoughts run away with him. “The woman’s devious and manipulative. All her schmoozing with you was to get around me. She probably doesn’t even like babies.”
Even as he said it he knew it wasn’t true. All he had to do was compare Bethany’s behavior toward Maree with Lana’s. They were like chalk and cheese. Anything Lana did for Maree was on sufferance and she didn’t care who knew it. If she could have held the child at arm’s length like a piece of soiled clothing she would have done so. Bethany had shown no such aversion, even pitching in to do the laundry without a second thought.
Why hadn’t she simply told him what she wanted instead of sneaking around pretending to be a child care expert?
Because she was right—if she was honest she wouldn’t have gotten to first base with him because of his stupid hang-up about that blasted dollhouse. She couldn’t know why he was so averse to letting the thing see the light of day, and he was in no hurry to explain himself to her. It was probably foolish, but a man had a right to his own kinds of foolishness.
What he didn’t have a right to do was treat her as badly as he had. “You’re right,” he said to the baby in his arms. “What you and I have to do is apologize to Bethany for the way we acted. It’s the least we can do before she leaves.”
The baby bounced up and down in his grasp, grabbing and pulling at strands of his hair. “Ah, ah, ah.”
He gave a yelp of pain but got her message. “Okay, I have to apologize. You got along with her like a house on fire. Come on then, let’s go eat humble pie. But I should warn you, it tastes worse than pureed spinach.”
Bethany was fumbling in her bag for her car keys when the crunch of footsteps on the gravel surface of the driveway made her look up. Nicholas came toward her carrying Maree in his arms, and the baby’s face lit up at the sight of her new friend.
Bethany tried to harden her heart with little success. It was small consolation that she had won a convert in the Frakes family, when it wasn’t the one who could help her. She lifted her head and met Nicholas’s eyes with a defiance she was far from feeling. “Was there another insult you forgot to throw at me?”
He cleared his throat. “What I forgot, and this little lady reminded me, was simple human courtesy. Is it too late to say I’m sorry for acting so hotheaded?”
It was so unexpected that she was momentarily at a loss for words, which her siblings would have found amusing in the extreme. What she lacked in cooking ability she usually made up for in conversational skills. When she finally found her voice she felt bound to be honest. “I deserved some of what you said. You were right, I should have told you what I wanted from the beginning.”
“You probably should, but it doesn’t justify my biting your head off, even if I was tired to the bone.”
Against her better judgment Bethany responded to the sincerity in his tone and smiled back. “I know what it’s like. Considering how small they are, babies demand enormous amounts of time, attention and love. I can hardly criticize you for giving them to Maree.”
He frowned. “If this Baby House of yours isn’t about baby care, how come you know so much about them?”
“I have five brothers and sisters, four of them much younger than me, so I got a lot of practice at helping to bring them up. I’m also a casual worker at a shelter for disadvantaged children in Melbourne.”
He nodded as if she had confirmed something for him. Then he nuzzled the baby’s tiny pink ear. “You know, Maree, you are wise for one so young.” She gurgled a response and he pretended to listen with rapt attention before nodding again. “Good idea, little darling. Exactly what I was thinking myself.”
Baffled, Bethany observed the strange, one-sided conversation, bemused by the way Maree seemed to understand everything Nicholas was saying. Which was more than Bethany herself did. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, sorry. I was consulting my friend here about an idea we just had. Do you know you’re the first person besides me that Maree has taken to since her parents died?”
What about the lovely Lana, Bethany couldn’t help wondering, but decided to quit while she was ahead. Leaving on good terms with him had seemed impossible a few moments ago. She should be thankful for small mercies.
As if to prove his point, the baby leaned out of Nicholas’s embrace and stretched out her arms toward Bethany. “Ah, ah, ah.”
Bethany reacted instinctively, setting her bag on the roof of the car and reaching to take the child from Nicholas. “See what I mean?” he said as the baby wrapped her arms around Bethany’s neck.
The child smelled sweetly of milk and baby powder, and Bethany buried her face in the satiny folds of her neck, making trilling noises with her lips and tongue. The vibrations made Maree chuckle and the sound resonated through Bethany like music. How could anyone not take to such a delightful little creature? Gradually she became aware of Nicholas watching her with something very much like satisfaction. What was going on here?
Since he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to enlighten her, she gave Maree one last hug and forced herself to hand the child back, closing her ears to the chorus of protesting noises. “I’d better be on my way. Thanks for clearing the air.” She tickled Maree under the chin. “Goodbye little one. It was fun meeting you.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Nicholas startled her by saying.
