entryway to C.J.’s more than spacious house, holding a babbling Ethan and gawking through the living room’s bank of floor-to-ceiling windows at the mountain vista scraping the periwinkle sky, her only thought was, I am so screwed.
And only partly because of the excruciating awkwardness of the situation, the way C.J. and she were suddenly acting with each other like a couple on a forced blind date. Nor was it—she told herself—because she was in any danger of falling for the guy. His house, however …
Slowly, she pivoted, taking in the twelve-foot ceilings, the stone floors, the archways leading in a half-dozen directions. Not that her parents’ three-bedroom, brick-and-stucco ranch house was exactly a shack. But compared with this …
This, she could get used to. Unfortunately.
“You hate it,” she heard behind her.
She turned to see C.J., in jeans and a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt, carefully setting the birdcage into a small niche right inside the living room. “Not at all. Why would you think that?”
“There’s not exactly a lot of furniture.”
True, other than the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed to the gills, the decor was a bit on the spartan side. But the oversized taupe leather sofa and chairs, the boldly patterned geometric rug in reds and blacks and neutrals underneath, got the job done. “It’s okay, I like it like this.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
His eyes swung to hers. Tonight, an odd whiff of vulnerability overlaid the cool confidence, that aura of success he normally exuded. In fact, if she weren’t mistaken, there was the slightest shimmer of a need for approval in his expression. Although she imagined he’d chop off a limb rather than admit it.
“I’m here so seldom, I never got around to …” He made a rolling motion with his hand. “You know. The stuff.”
She smiled, his obvious discomfiture settling her own nerves a hair or two. “Accessories, you mean?”
“Yeah. All those little touches that make a house a real home. Like your apartment.”
What a funny guy, she mused, then said gently, “It’s not the stuff that make a house a home, C. J. It’s the people who live there.”
He nodded, then apparently noticed she was about to drop the baby. “Urn … well, I suppose I should show you where you and Ethan are going to sleep.”
“Good idea. Although …” She hefted the baby toward him. “Here, he’s gettin’ heavier by the second.”
“Oh … sure.” After only a moment’s hesitation while he apparently tried to figure out the best way to make the transfer, C.J. gingerly slipped his hands under the baby’s armpits, giving her a relieved smile once the baby was securely settled against his chest, rubbing his nose into the soft gray fabric of his daddy’s shirt. C.J.’s eyes shot to Dana’s. “Does he need a tissue or something?”
Dana laughed, even as her insides did a little hop-skip at the mixture of tenderness and panic on C.J.’s face. “No, I think that means he’s sleepy. We’d better get the crib set up pretty soon so we can put him down.”
“Crib. Right. Follow me.”
C. J. loped down the hall leading off the foyer, Ethan clearly enjoying the view from this new, and much higher, vantage point. Dana trotted dutifully along behind, catching glimpses of a simply furnished dining room, a massive kitchen given to heavy use of granite and brushed steel and a family room with a billboard-sized, flat-panel TV.
“I thought we could put the baby in here,” he said, as she followed him into a large, completely empty bedroom with plush, wheat-colored carpeting and a view of the golf course … and the pool. Of course. “And then this room,” C.J. said, barely giving Dana the chance to register that he’d already bought a beautiful wooden changing table and matching chest of drawers, “is yours.” She double-stepped to catch up.
“Oh!”
Not at all what she’d expected, given the masculine minimalism in the rest of the house. And certainly the cinnabar-hued walls were a shock after the inoffensive real-estate neutrals in her own apartment. But the rich color, the honeyed pine headboard on the high double bed, the poufy, snowy-white comforter and masses of pillows, immediately brought a grin to her lips.
“Blame the decorator,” he said behind her.
“Thank the decorator, you mean,” she said, unable to resist skimming a hand across the cool, smooth surface of the comforter. She could sense him watching her; she didn’t allow herself the luxury of contemplating what he might be thinking. That he’d been invaded, most likely.
“Well,” he said. “That’s good, then. Okay. Well. Here,” he said, handing back the baby. “I’ll go bring in the rest of the stuff.”
Jiggling Ethan, she stuck her head into the adjoining bathroom, shaking her head at the expanse of marble and the multiheaded shower stall that looked far grander than anything that utilitarian had a right to look. “Heck, you can even see the entire city from the john,” she murmured to the baby, who had decided prying off her nose would be amusing. “Is that weird or what?”
But then, so was this whole setup. Moving in with a man she barely knew wasn’t exactly something she did on a regular basis. Heck, moving in with any man wasn’t something she did on any kind of basis. But still. As weird setups went, this was about as classy as they came.
Once back in the bedroom, she stopped dead at the sight of the gargantuan, charcoal-gray cat sitting smack dab in the middle of the bed. Pale green eyes—curious, bored—assessed her with unnerving calm. C.J. had a cat? A cat who undoubtedly made walls tremble when he walked through the house. A cat who—the thing yawned, sucking up half the air in the room—probably lived for catching and eating things. Like mice. Chihuahuas.
Tasty little finches.
With another yawn, the beast fell over on his side and began to clean one paw. “You are so not sleeping with me,” Dana said, then carted the baby out of the cat-infested room and back to his own, where C.J. had set up the portacrib in a corner close to one window.
“Do we need to change him or something?” C.J. asked.
“Nope. Already did that before we left the apartment, so he’s good. Okay, sweetie,” she whispered to the tiny boy, nuzzling his corn-silk head before lowering him into the crib. “It’s night-night time. Get that white blanket out of the diaper bag, would you? Yes, that’s it,” she said to C.J. Except instead of reaching for it, she said, “On second thought, why don’t you give it to him?”
“Me? Why?”
“Because it’s his ‘lovey.’ It makes him feel secure. So he’ll start associating feeling safe with you.”
“Uh, gee, Dana. I don’t know….”
“C.J.” she said firmly. “The idea’s to make him feel safe. Not you.”
Those blue eyes, gone a soft gray in the twilight, grazed hers for a moment before he nodded, then lowered the blanket into
