because this was her second visit, but knew it had more to do with the suitcases packed around the baby seat. They made her feel as if she was staying longer than the couple of weeks Sam required.
This time she didn’t get out of the car right away, but waited until Sam emerged and spoke to Dougal, although the dog was wagging its tail furiously, rather than barking a warning.
“Good morning,” she said, annoyed at the heat she felt surge into her face at the sight of Sam. Dressed in dark blue pants and a white summer-weight sweater, he looked less like The Beast of her sister’s experience and more like the kind of man Haley herself could be attracted to if she was crazy enough to let it happen.
He looked as uncomfortable as she felt. Maybe he just didn’t like babies, she thought as she unstrapped Joel from his baby seat. If so, he should have thought about that before getting Ellen pregnant.
“You’re late,” he said.
Haley frowned at him, stung by his tone. “I understood from Miranda that you don’t have to leave until this afternoon, so there’s plenty of time for you to brief me.” She was late because Joel had burbled strained turkey all over her best blouse, forcing her to change into a T-shirt before she could set off, but she didn’t say so. She felt unprofessional enough, arriving for a job with a baby and a mountain of possessions in tow, most of them to do with Joel’s care. “If you’ll show me my room, I’ll settle the baby down for a nap, then you can give me my instructions.”
He bounded down the front steps and picked up her largest suitcase as if it weighed nothing at all, then loaded his other arm with an assortment of possessions. His eyebrows rose. “What do you pack when you’re going away for a month?”
“Babies need a lot of things.”
His smile vanished as if a lightbulb had been switched off. “I wouldn’t know,” he said shortly, and started back up the steps.
She stared after his rigid back in consternation. What had she said? He couldn’t be upset because she’d arrived with the baby. He’d known from the beginning that they were a package, but he obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with Joel. He hadn’t even acknowledged the baby’s presence, she thought furiously. “He is a person, you know,” she snapped.
Sam froze on the top step, regarding her with an expression like thunder. “Excuse me?”
It was too late to close her fool mouth now, so she said, “Sam, this is Joel. Joel, this is Sam. Say hello to Joel, Sam.”
He looked as if he would rather strip naked on the step, an image that startled her because of the vivid way it sprang into her mind. Not somewhere she had any business going, she told herself as he said through clenched teeth, “Hello, Joel.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Harder than she knew, Sam thought. Everything in him protested at the sight of the baby waving chubby arms at him, a living reminder of Sam’s own inadequacy. When he’d hired Haley, he’d been sure he could cope with her child living under his roof. He hadn’t expected the baby’s arrival to trigger a rush of paternal longing so strong it was like a physical pain.
Suddenly Haley thrust the child at him. “Now you’ve been introduced, would you mind holding Joel while I fetch his favorite toy? I just remembered I left it in the car.”
Before Sam could say a word she bounded back down the steps, leaving him with the baby. As the child’s scents engulfed him and the small hands clutched at him, Sam felt his stomach muscles twist. Joel looked exactly how Sam had imagined his own son would look before he discovered that it would never happen, and his heart felt as if it was being crushed in a giant hand.
Joel opened his mouth to protest. Instinctively Sam jiggled the baby up and down in his arms, and the child’s cry dropped to a whimper. “Hey now, she’ll be back in a minute,” Sam assured Joel. “We men can cope on our own for a short time, can’t we?”
Sam’s serious tone caught Joel’s attention. The whimpers faded altogether and the baby fixed Sam with huge, luminous eyes. Then he reached for the top button of Sam’s shirt and tugged on it.
Immediately Sam felt an answering tug deep inside, and his hold on the baby tightened as regret speared through him. He’d held babies before. His sister, Jessie, had two. But when they were born, Sam had still believed he would father children of his own someday. Now he knew it was impossible, and holding Joel heightened the aching sense of loss that was never far from Sam’s mind.
“Not your fault, cute stuff,” Sam said, hearing his voice sound husky with emotion. “You’re just the sort of kid I always hoped I’d have.”
Sam had Joel’s full attention. The baby hung onto Sam’s shirt and gave every sign of listening intently. “Yep, I wanted one just like you and one just like…” Sam caught himself about to say “your mother” and substituted, “…well, a little girl.”
At the word “girl,” Joel made muttering noises. Sam felt a smile start. “Don’t like girls, huh? You’ll change your tune one day, when you meet that special lady you can’t live without. I thought I’d found her in my ex-wife, Christine,” he explained to the baby. Joel’s head bobbed as if he understood every word, although Sam knew he couldn’t possibly. “Not that we’re the best example. She was a cover model I met at my publishers’ Christmas party. ‘Course it doesn’t have to turn out the way it did for us,” Sam went on, wondering if he’d gone completely crazy. Why was he telling this to a baby, for goodness sake? But Joel made a good listener, and Sam’s monologue was keeping the baby calm, so he decided it didn’t matter what he said, as long as he used a soothing tone.
“She said she didn’t mind that I couldn’t father children,” he went on in a monotone. “Even had her big shot doctor brother do the tests so we could keep the news in the family. Never did like me, her brother. Thought a writer wasn’t good enough for his sister. Medically speaking, he was right.”
Joel smacked him in the chest. “Bab-bab.”
“Yeah, pretty bad,” Sam agreed. “But then I can’t stand my ex’s brother either, so we’re even. But you don’t want to hear this. Heck, I don’t want to hear this.”
“Hear what?” Haley asked, bounding up the steps. Under her arm she carried a woolly lamb toy. Joel’s eyes lit up at the sight of his plaything and he reached out.
As she took the baby from him, Sam felt a twinge of remorse. “Men’s business,” he said gruffly, annoyed with himself for letting the baby get to him.
He hadn’t been prepared for the way Haley made him feel, either. Watching her settle the child on one hip, Sam felt flames leap inside him.
His sister, Jessie, claimed that the only good thing about being pregnant was the way her breasts filled out. Despite her recent motherhood, Haley’s breasts were still small, but they were in scale with the rest of her trim figure, Sam decided. She wore a wraparound skirt of Oriental-looking material in black and gold, with a black T-shirt that clung to her curves as if poured on. In her arms, the baby fisted a handful of the T-shirt and held on. Sam almost groaned aloud.
Joining them on the steps, Dougal barked and the baby’s eyes widened. Haley bent down, allowing the dog to sniff the infant. “Friend, Dougal,” she said firmly. The dog’s tail bannered and he gave the baby’s hand a gentle lick. Joel gurgled with delight, a smile breaking out on his chubby
