I should wait,” he suggested, wincing as his little girl squalled, flailing her arms and kicking her fat little legs. “I’ll give it a try sometime when she’s not squirming so much.”
“Mr. Stockwell, babies who need changing most generally are going to squirm.”
“See. There you have it.”
“Have what?”
Becky, who didn’t look nearly as cute right then as she had when she was sound asleep, kept on yowling and waving her arms and legs around. She was wearing some little yellow T-shirt thing with snaps all over the front of it.
Ms. Miller made more cooing sounds as she peeled away tabs.
“You should do it,” he said. “You’re good at it.”
“And you should learn. Come on over here.”
Hell.
He took the few steps to stand by the changing pad with her. She already had the diaper off. She pressed a lever with her foot, and tossed it into the white bin beside the bureau. Next, she reached over and pulled a couple of white squares out of a plastic container.
She held out the squares. “Here. These are baby wipes. Take them.”
He should have known better, but he did what she told him. The damn things were wet, for the love of Mike. His disgust must have shown on his face.
Ms. Miller let out a loud hoot of laughter.
Surprised the hell out of him—and Becky, too. His little girl stopped yowling to stare at the woman standing over her.
Ms. Miller had the grace to shut her mouth. “Oops,” she said. “Sorry.” She looked away—to control herself, presumably. He heard one more snicker and then she turned back to him with a straight face.
He was still holding the wet squares from the plastic container.
Ms. Miller said, “Wipe her bottom. Very gently.”
He said nothing, only shook his head and stepped closer and did what she said that he had to do.
Once that was accomplished, she had him throw away the used wipes. Then she handed him the diaper rash ointment and told him to gently rub it on. And then, she showed him how to fold a diaper into the slots on the pair of plastic pants. Finally she had him take Becky’s little feet and lift up her bottom and slide the diaper and plastic pants underneath her.
After that, it was pretty simple. He folded the sides up and pressed the Velcro tapes together.
“Now,” she said, “we’ll wrap her back up nice and cozy in this light blanket and you can hold her for a few minutes. I’ll stick a bottle in warm water. Be back in a flash.”
She was gone before he could order her to stay. A dim light went on somewhere in the playroom.
How long did it take to warm up a bottle?
Too long, more than likely.
Becky looked like she might just start crying again. So he picked her up very carefully and put her on his shoulder the way Ms. Miller had shown him before. And then he stood there, feeling like ten kinds of oafish idiot, patting her little back and listening to Ms. Miller in the other room, bustling around in there, doing whatever had to be done to get Becky’s nighttime snack ready.
Becky made a little, experimental sort of fussy sound.
He did not want her starting to yowl in his ear. Maybe if he rocked her…
Yes. That would be good. Babies liked rocking. Didn’t they?
He carried her to the rocker and carefully lowered the two of them into it. He rocked very gently, thinking that would be more soothing, though he felt just frantic enough to keep having to remind himself not to pick up speed.
Becky whined. And then she cried. She also burped. He felt that. It was a wet burp and it made a warm, soggy spot on his shirt. That was when he remembered that he should have put a diaper on his shoulder before holding a baby there.
He went on rocking.
Becky went on crying.
And finally, Ms. Miller reappeared with a bottle.
He didn’t know whether to hug her or yell at her.
She went to the rows of shelves over the changing area and got the diaper that he’d forgotten to use. And then, finally, she padded over to him on her pretty white feet. She set the bottle on the little table by the rocker.
“Here,” she said, calm and competence personified. Gently she peeled Becky off his shoulder.
He looked up at her. “What now?”
“Now you can feed her.”
He started to argue, just on principle. But then he thought that feeding her might not be near as bad as rocking her while she wailed. She’d have a bottle in her mouth, right? And that meant she’d be quiet.
So he allowed Ms. Miller to lay his daughter in his arms, then to hand him the bottle. The rest was easy. He touched the nipple to Becky’s mouth and she latched on and started sucking away.
Piece of cake.
He grinned down at her, pleased with himself, pleased with Becky—and also pleased, though he probably shouldn’t have allowed himself to be, with Ms. Miller.
“You’ve got drool on that nice blue shirt,” Ms. Miller said softly.
He smiled down at his gorgeous, hungry daughter. “Breaks of the game.”
“Here.” She bent close. She smelled warm and sweet, of woman and baby lotion and some faint, light perfume. She smoothed the diaper on his shoulder. He didn’t even realize he’d stopped rocking until she pulled away and he lost the scent of her. Slowly, cautiously, he started the chair moving back and forth again.
“When she’s done, burp her—you remember how to do that?”
He didn’t look up. It seemed safer that way.
She continued, “Then put her in the crib again. On her back. Tuck her in nice and cozy. You think you can handle that?”
He wanted to say, “Maybe not. Maybe you’d better stay…” But where the hell would that get them? She was a smart-mouthed, well-meaning social services worker from Anywhere, Oklahoma. The kind who married, settled down with one guy forever and raised a passel of kids. And he was a man with no interest in anything that had settling down in it—let alone forever.
All right. He’d admit it. She held a certain…attraction for him. He didn’t understand it, because he never dated the homey, settling-down type. Not ever. And he never went after the help. It was a cardinal rule with him.
He didn’t understand it.
But did he even need to understand it?
He
