not fun.” He glanced at the baby a few feet away. “But this is?”
“Sure.”
“Lady, you’ve got a strange sense of fun.”
Peggy had told Laura that Jeff not only had no experience taking care of children, but also that he didn’t even like them.
She frowned at him. “Your sister has three kids. Don’t you remember how cute they were when they were little?”
He shrugged and bent down to neatly place the folded bags in the appropriate rack just inside the pantry door. “I remember they cried. A lot,” he said as he stood up again and closed the door. “They smelled bad and they couldn’t even talk to tell you why they cried all the time.”
“No wonder you never visit Peggy and her family.”
He looked at her. “Is that what she said?”
Was he offended? How could he be? “It’s true, isn’t it? You see them about once a year?”
“Yeah, it’s true.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned one hip against the blond wood countertop. “She tell you why?”
“She said you’re uncomfortable around kids.” Laura didn’t tell him the rest. Did he really need to know that his own sister, though she loved him, thought he was too self-involved to be concerned about family?
“That’s part of it,” he admitted, letting his gaze slide from Laura to the baby, now chewing contentedly on her own fist. “But mostly it’s because I can’t even talk to Peggy and her husband anymore.”
“Why not?” Laura asked. Peggy and Jim Cummings were two of the nicest people she’d ever known. Was the woman’s own brother too dense to see that?
He shook his head and smiled without humor. “Before they had those kids, Peggy and Jim and I had some good times. Skiing, sailing, took a few trips together.”
“And?” she prodded, interested now.
“And, the minute the first kid was born, it was all over.” He pushed away from the counter, walked across the utilitarian kitchen and stood, staring down at the baby in the basket. “They became parents in the worst possible sense. All they talked about was Thomas. His teeth. His upset stomach. His first steps. The first time he used a spoon by himself, you would have thought he was Einstein reincarnated.”
Laura smiled to herself as she stared at Jeff’s broad back. His sister was still like that Just a few weeks ago, Peggy had called to crow over Tina winning the second-grade spelling bee.
Like any other good parent would.
“But that’s perfectly natural,” Laura said, and walked to stand beside him. Looking down at Miranda, she smiled. “They’re proud of their children.”
“They’re boring,” he countered, swiveling his head to stare at her. “They used to have plans. Ambitions. Now those ambitions are all for the kids.”
An emotion she couldn’t quite identify flickered in his pale blue eyes briefly, then disappeared. “All parents want good things for their kids,” she said quietly.
“Sure,” he countered. “But do they have to stop being people themselves to be good parents?”
“Peggy and Jim are terrific people,” she argued, defending her friends.
He shook his head as he looked at her. Once again, Laura felt a flutter of awareness dance through her bloodstream. Deliberately, she squashed it.
“Is it so wrong to have ambitions and dreams for your kids?” she asked, determined to keep this conversation going, if only to keep her mind too busy to daydream.
He thought about her question for a long minute, then shrugged. “Not for Peggy and Jim,” he said, shifting his gaze back to the baby, now intently staring up at the two adults. “But that’s not me,” he continued. “I have plans for my career. Plans I’ve worked toward long and hard.”
“Everybody makes plans,” she said.
It was as if he hadn’t heard her.
“I’m going to be the youngest general in the corps,” he stated. Then he glanced at the wicker basket. “And I’m not going to let anything stop me.”
Three
A nightmare.
In less than twelve hours, his life had become a waking nightmare.
Jeff stumbled across the living room, stepped on a fallen pacifier and grunted as the dull yet stabbing pain lanced from his arch straight up his leg.
“Are you all right?” Laura asked, her voice high enough to carry over the baby’s wailing.
“Dandy,” he muttered, then flopped down beside her on the couch. Instantly, he lifted one hip and pulled a leaking baby bottle from under his butt. “How can one kid need so much stuff?” he grumbled to no one in particular as he slammed the plastic bottle down onto the coffee table.
Laura had only one lamp on, and in the dim light, he surveyed what had, only that morning, been his sanctuary.
Blankets, clean diapers, bottles, pacifiers, lotion, powder—there was enough junk in the already small room to satisfy a battalion of babies. So why wasn’t the only baby present happy?
“Why is she screaming like that?” he demanded.
“I think she’s teething,” Laura said, and hitched Miranda higher on her shoulder.
“Perfect,” he said. “How long does that last?”
In the soft light, Laura smirked at him. “According to my watch, she should be finished in another three and a half minutes.”
His eyebrows lifted. He knew sarcasm when he heard it, and if he wasn’t so damn tired, he might have taken a shot himself. As it was, his heart just wasn’t in it.
Laura whispered to the baby while stroking the infant’s back in long, gentle motions. Jeff watched her, at first for lack of anything else to do, but after a moment, because he couldn’t seem to look away.
And he also couldn’t figure out why. That nightgown of hers certainly wasn’t alluring. An oversized T-shirt emblazoned Life Is A Trip, Don’t Miss It hung to midthigh. Although, he thought, the surprisingly shapely legs revealed by that shirt were not bad at all. As he watched, she shifted slightly, tugging the hem down fruitlessly.
Her thick brown hair lay loose on her shoulders, and he had to admit that the casual style complemented her features far better than the scraped-back ponytail she’d worn earlier. Her high cheekbones were more sharply defined in the soft light. Light brown eyebrows arched high over eyes that looked as deep and mysterious as a moonless night. Her generous mouth was curved in a half smile even as the baby in her arms flailed tiny fists against her face. Laura merely caught one of those fists, opened it and kissed the small, chubby palm.
His jaw tightened, and something inside him
