stuff. I temporarily reassigned one of the maids to Mikey. Maria. She raised five kids but has no interest in long-term child care. He’s with her now. She watches him if I have to go into the office or do a conference call from home.”
“Maybe that’s where we should start. What are the next two months going to look like? What are you hoping to accomplish? Total immersion means there won’t be a lot of going into the office. We should organize a list of goals and then assign blocks of time to—”
“Whoa, Schedule Police. Is all that necessary?”
“Yes, extremely. We have a limited amount of time and a lot to cover. We need a plan of attack. Additionally, it’s important to note children thrive on schedules. They like to know what’s coming next. It’s comforting. Schedules are now a part of your life.”
In the time she’d taken to explain the most fundamental concept Shay needed to learn, he’d edged into her space. The fine lines he’d grown around his eyes were deeper than she’d realized, aging him. He wasn’t twenty-two anymore, either, and it fit him nicely.
If only the inside had aged as well as the outside.
“Hey, Ju?” His gaze flitted over her and the atmosphere tangibly shifted, growing dense and tight. “Danged if I don’t like this new you. That high-brow tone you get when you’re being all consulty-like, it’s really sexy.”
She narrowed an eye at him. “Say what?”
“Yeah. I like it. Give me some more.” His cheekbones drew upward as he smiled wolfishly.
“Um.” Now she had a really keen awareness of exactly how close Shay was and exactly how far away the door was. The clean freshness of his soap frayed her senses. It wasn’t what he used to smell like. “That was all I had to say.”
“Too bad. What should we do now?”
“Unpack.” Hadn’t she just said she could do that later? She took a step backward, hoping the movement would jar her brain into functioning again. “Then we can go over some basics.”
“Or,” he said, wrapping his tongue around the r in a thoroughly suggestive way, “I could put some Shay in your sway, baby.”
Her eyes shut for a brief, insane second. The first time he’d laid that line on her, she’d laughed and let him take her to dinner. After an appropriate period of dating, he’d sweet-talked her clothes off and she’d spent forty-eight hours in his bed losing all sense of time and place. His full-on masculine quicksand had sucked her under and kept her there. Pulling free had been the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“My sway is A-Okay, thanks.” Dr. Seuss instead of Dr. Cane. Shay yanked her out of academia, yanked her out of reasonableness. He had to stop. “We agreed it was best to have a professional association only.”
When he reached out and fingered a lock of hair, she almost jerked out of her skin. With a perplexed once-over, he dropped his hand, allowing her to breathe again.
“No. I said I was hiring you for your expertise. I did not agree to the distance between us. Feels wrong. That line worked once to get your attention. Figured I’d try it again.”
Distance. She wished she didn’t know precisely what he meant. In college, they’d talked about everything, joked and flirted without censor. There was a strange edge now that cut in ways she hadn’t anticipated. “Well, I’m not falling for it again.”
“Maybe I’ll find a different line, then.” When she cocked a brow, he shrugged and said, “It’s weird to be dancing around our past, trying to avoid land mines.”
“So you figured you’d step on one deliberately?”
“Hey, it’s easier to deal with an explosion you know is coming than one you don’t.”
Shay’s straightforward approach was a far cry from textbook psychology and he seldom followed conventions anyway. Her doctorate wouldn’t get much traction here and they did have to spend time together. “Let’s ditch the explosives and try something else, like really putting the past behind us. We’re different people now. Maybe this time around, we can be friends.”
His grin could have melted butter. “Can we have a sleepover and watch scary movies? I haven’t had a good midnight pillow fight in ages.”
She laughed. “Sorry, sport. Your future includes diapers and bottles. But I’ll gladly stay up late with you for that.”
The pages of Shay’s life were turning so fast, he barely had time to read the words, let alone absorb them. If everything slowed down, he might catch up.
He should be asleep. Instead, he was watching the digital clock. Mikey woke up between one-fifteen and one-twenty pretty much every night, like the kid’s stomach had an alarm. Shay usually woke in cold panic right before the witching hour, terrified he’d missed the opening wail, effectively forcing a helpless baby to lie there crying while Shay slept.
The video monitor on Shay’s nightstand showed an immobile lump in the middle of the crib. On cue, the lump stirred and let out a yowl. Shay hit the carpet and threw on a shirt before trudging to the connecting door between his bedroom and Mikey’s. He wanted to bond with Mikey and this was part of it, but some nights he wished they could bond through the mutual act of sleep.
“Shh. I’m here.” He scooped up the baby and gathered him against a shoulder. He carried the mewling bundle to the kitchenette he’d paid double to have installed in the corner of the nursery within twenty-four hours of the reading of the will. Murmuring nonsense words, he went through the rote motions of heating water and mixing formula for the hungry bottomless pit snuffling against his shirt.
A whiff of female filtered in underneath the strong sour of formula.
“Hey,” Juliana whispered behind him.
Every nerve lit up as if he’d crested a mountain in his Cessna and an endless valley fell away under the wings. It’d be nice to blame his reaction on lack of sex. Or sleep. But he’d gone without both many times and it had never caused spontaneous bursts of poetry and awareness.
She thought they should try to be friends. Screw that. She’d have to get used to the idea that he wanted her in his arms, naked and shuddering with pleasure.
He grabbed the full bottle and shot her a smile over his shoulder. “Welcome to my world.”
She smiled back, tousled and gorgeous in her just-out-of-bed state. “Can I feed him?”
“Is the dark side of the moon cold?”
One eyebrow crinkled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
He waited until she settled into the rocking chair and positioned the baby against her thighs, his fingertips tingling where he’d brushed her. The kid went after the bottle like an alcoholic with a fifth of Jim Beam.
Shay slumped against the wall and slid to the carpet. Tomorrow he’d order another chair. Should have already done that. It hadn’t registered there’d be two people in the nursery taking care of Mikey at the same time.
In record time, Mikey drained the bottle. She set the empty
