No matter what Juliana did, he cried more. Worry lines popped up around her eyes as she patted and rubbed Mikey’s back.
“Yeah, you might as well settle in and get comfortable,” he advised. “He’ll do that for about another hour.”
“Shay, that’s not normal. How many days has he cried more than a few minutes after eating?”
“All of them. Babies cry a lot, don’t they?” Unease trickled across his shoulders. Was something wrong with Mikey and he’d been too clueless to connect the dots?
Juliana shot off a round of questions, which he did his best to answer. If nothing else, he’d found the right person to help—she was something, asking things he’d never have considered, like if he’d spoken to Donna’s nanny about whether Donna used a different brand of formula or if she’d been breastfeeding. Yeah, that was a conversation he was dying to have. He scrubbed at his jaw, bristling the short hairs sideways. What kind of dad balked at saying breastfeeding out loud?
“He probably has reflux. We’ll get it fixed, won’t we, honey?” she murmured in Mikey’s ear and started humming, rocking the chair simultaneously. When that didn’t work, she laid him across her knees, facedown and rubbed his back.
“How do you know to do all these things? Your grad school professors must have loved you.” His professors had hated him, as they tended to when a student could ace a test without reading the textbook or showing up for lectures. Mind-numbing stuff. He and Grant had dropped out of MIT’s graduate program and started GGS Aerospace while Donna finished her PhD. Best move he’d ever made.
Second best had been hiring Juliana to turn him into a father. She was doing exactly what he’d hoped—making everything all right.
She stood and walked with Mikey, pacing around the nursery with swaying steps. Mikey was slung over her shoulder, head hanging down her back. Finally, he burped and quieted down.
“I didn’t learn about babies in grad school,” she said once she’d wrapped Mikey up in the blankets mummy-style. But when she didn’t elaborate, his curiosity was piqued. They’d split in their senior year at SMU and she’d had eight years’ worth of life since then.
“Watch a lot of baby videos online?” That’s what he’d done. Learned enough to get by and enough to know he needed far more help than five-minute snippets posted by internet wannabe-stars.
“I read a few books.” Mikey was nestled in her arms peacefully and she kept her eyes on the baby, then busied herself with placing him back in the crib.
Shay crossed his fingers. Sometimes the baby went to sleep and sometimes, the second he hit the mattress, he started screaming again. Tonight was a back-to-sleep night. Thank God.
Shay’s already lit-up nerves weren’t faring well with the dual punch of Juliana and screaming baby.
They tiptoed out of the nursery, parting to retreat to their separate bedrooms. And met again inside the nursery at 4:05 a.m., the second hour engrained in Mikey’s stomach.
Bleary-eyed, Juliana shuffled a step closer. “He’s still waking up twice a night?”
“That’s not normal, either?”
Man, was anything about this kid right? Genetically speaking, he should be well ahead of the curve. Maybe it was Shay’s fault—corrupting the baby with his lack of experience.
When he moved toward the crib, she tugged him back with a hand to his elbow. “We’ll let the baby cry it out this time.”
Let the baby cry on purpose? He eyed the bawling lump and then eyed Juliana. She nodded toward the door and left. Mystified, he followed her back into his bedroom, Mikey’s wails grating down his spine.
“We’ll watch him for a while.” Juliana sank onto the bed between his pillow and kicked-away sheets and motioned to the monitor.
Her face glowed in the pale moonlight spilling from the window opposite the bed. Middle of the night, yet in tailored pajamas and robe, she exuded classiness.
If he’d known a woman would be in his bed, he might have requested silk sheets. What a flat-out disgrace it wasn’t that kind of late-night party. He snapped on the bedside light. No point in maintaining ambiance.
As he moved away from the bed, his toes curled against the hardwood floor. It was cold, but the carpet only stuck out about a foot around the bed frame. With all the hands-off Dr. Cane had been throwing around, it seemed like he should keep a respectable distance from the consultant in his bed.
At least until he figured out how to bridge it.
“All these books you read to learn about babies. You read those recently?” he asked.
The whole concept of ignoring a crying baby stuck in his craw. If something needed attention, you handled it. But he was paying for expert advice. How much sense did it make to second-guess the doctor?
“In the last few years,” she said.
“So, not as preparation for this job.”
“I reread some on the plane. You hired me to teach you to be a father. Caring for a baby is part of that but it’s not my primary field of expertise. Child-rearing as a whole is.”
“I know.” Mikey was still sobbing with no signs of stopping. Every muscle in Shay’s body stood tensed, ready to spring toward the door, but she remained calm, grounded. He’d missed having ready access to that strength. “I read your dissertation.”
Juliana jerked her gaze away from the monitor to stare at him. “You did? All of it?”
“You think I called you up for old times’ sake? I did my research.”
“I’m just surprised. It’s dry, pure academics. Most people would fall asleep after two paragraphs.”
“I didn’t. You wrote it. I was always fascinated by your mind.”
She processed that, blank-faced. While he often blurted out exactly what was on his mind without restriction, she spoke very carefully, then and now. “You can’t still find me interesting.”
“Yet I do.” And he grew more interested by the minute.
She’d always turned him on but this grown-up version of Juliana was something else. A challenge and a half. What was it going to take to break through her resolve to keep things professional between them?
The only way to find out was to rattle her some more and see what was what.
They stared at each other for a long time and he realized his muscles had relaxed. Mikey was still crying but intermittently. The restless urge to move had stabilized and for the first time since the explosion, he didn’t want to go climb something or fly something or jump off something to beat back the weight of life.
“Hey, Ju, do you still play the violin?” The question flew from his mouth in hopes of keeping her in his bed for a while longer. He wanted to talk some more. And he liked the view.
“No. I haven’t played since college.”
The forlorn note
