here, precious,” Haley cooed as she gently lifted the infant from inside the basket. “Are you hungry? Are you starving? Yes, you are.”
Creed was fascinated by the change in Haley. Her voice had gone soft and cootchy coo and she asked questions as if a day-old baby knew the answers. The baby’s response was a high-pitched wah-wah-wah.
“Can I do something to help?” Creed asked above the noise.
“Hold her while I prepare formula.” Before he could admit that holding a baby made him nervous, she plunked the child against his shoulder. The moment the tiny face touched his shirt, she began turning her head side to side, mouth wide and seeking like a rooting puppy.
“Hey, why’s she doing that?”
“She thinks you’re her mama. Rub her cheek with the side of your finger.”
He did. The baby turned toward the touch. “She’s soft as a—”
“Rose Petal. That’s what I call her.” Haley produced a baby bottle of water, scooped some powdery stuff inside and shook the bottle hard.
“You call her rose petal?”
“She doesn’t have a name. I have to call her something.”
A sharp pain twisted in Creed’s gut. A baby should have a name, a real one, well-thought out and dreamed about. But he didn’t say that. Haley would think he’d gone soft in the head.
“Hippie name,” he muttered. “Rose Petal.”
Haley took the comment in stride. She widened her eyes and grinned. “Better than sneezewort or moonflower.”
Nice. She had a sense of humor.
“Or dandelion,” he shot back.
“Hey, I like that!”
“Figures,” he said, grinning to soften the teasingly spoken word. Maybe the flakey foster mom wasn’t so bad, after all.
Haley moved in close, maneuvering at Creed’s shoulder to slide the bottle nipple between Rose Petal’s seeking lips. Creed tilted his chin down to watch the tiny jaws latch on. Watching Haley’s long slender fingers hold the bottle, Creed caught a whiff of something flowery mingled with the milky scent and realized how very close the three faces were. He lifted his gaze and there was Haley, watching him watching the baby.
Brown. Her eyes were brown with flecks of gold and a black ring around the irises. A small mole dotted one cheek next to her nose, but instead of detracting, the beauty mark enchanted him. He had a crazy urge to touch it.
When the baby made soft, contented nursing sounds, Haley smiled into Creed’s eyes.
A starburst of feeling exploded inside him, warm and colorful.
It was as if they were a couple and this was their baby. Creed’s pulse did a giddyap, stealing his breath. He was mesmerized by the child and the woman. Their soft, clean smell. Their natural beauty.
Creed’s head swam and his chest filled with inexplicable tenderness. Flakey Haley must be burning some kind of wacky weed to make his head spin, make him lose his mind. Weird. Very weird.
The back door opened. Haley glanced in that direction. The strange, tender moment dissipated like dandelions on the wind. Creed found his breath again, though his pulse still galloped.
What was going on here?
Bemused and bothered, he eased Rose Petal from his shoulder and handed her off to Haley. The baby was fine, well-cared for. That’s what he’d come here to learn. Now he could leave and not look back.
Haley stepped away, hugging the baby close. Relief eased the strange tension in Creed’s shoulders. Apparently, the bizarre black-hole magnetism had been one-sided. Haley appeared completely unaffected. He, on the other hand, wondered what had just happened.
He exhaled another cleansing breath. Better. Much better.
Get a grip, Carter.
Thomas came into the kitchen, dragging the pieces of the still-unassembled kite. “Are you going to help me finish this?”
“Can’t right now, Thomas.” Haley swayed the baby back and forth in her arms.
Thomas looked dejected, as though the new baby intruded on his turf. Creed supposed she had. To tell the truth, he was so glad for the distraction that Creed said, “I’m a pretty fair kite builder. Want me to help?”
He should leave. He needed to leave. But he didn’t. Behind Thomas’s thick glasses, Creed spotted an irresistible gleam of excitement.
“Would you?” Thomas asked. “That would be cool. I bet you know a lot about how stuff flies.”
“You mean aerodynamics?”
“Yeah, that stuff.”
“More than we need to know to get this kite up in the air. Let me see what you’ve got there.”
He led them to the table, too aware that Haley followed, the baby now bouncing against her shoulder while she patted the tiny back. He tried not to notice Haley’s bare feet and the way her reddish hair curved against her cheek. Try being the operative word.
“It’s just a cheap kite from the dollar store. I hope it will fly,” she said.
“We’ll make it work.” To Thomas, he said, “You ever heard of Bernoulli?”
“No.”
“Well, you will. He was a famous scientist.”
“Did he invent the kite?”
Creed grinned. Cute kid. “No, but his theories explain why something flies.”
“Even a helicopter?”
“Right. Same principle. Let’s get the dowel rods in place first and I’ll show you what I mean.”
He helped Thomas spread the plastic diamond on the table and insert the balsam rods from point to point. Together, they tied the strings to hold the sticks in place. In minutes, the kite was formed.
Haley lurked at his elbow, watching, commenting. He felt her there, smelled her garden fresh scent and heard the soft murmurs she made to the baby.
Try as he might to remember his mission—the baby and a kite—Haley’s presence made him itchy, as if he’d rolled in poison ivy in her yard. Considering the jungle out there, maybe he had.
“You can put the tail and string on in a minute, but first let me show you something.” Holding the center rod, he lifted the kite parallel to the table. “Here’s where Bernoulli’s law comes in.” He passed his hand over and under the kite. “There’s air in this room all around the kite. But the kite divides the air so the air underneath is blocked and slowed down. When the wind is blowing, the pressure builds up against the bottom of the kite until—” he tilted the kite upward as if it was about to fly “—you have lift.”
