Karen Templeton - Baby Business

“He’s okay? ” she said, eyes wide. “Hey, you don’t want him, toss him this way. I got no problem with leftovers.”

“What happened to your standards?”

“Trust me, chica . He meets them.”

The door swung open, and he was in. And smiling. “Morning, ladies,” he said, his voice still holding a hint of just-out-of-bed roughness that made Dana swallow. Hard.

Then she smiled, thinking, Okay, toots. You can do this .

Damn.

The Dana Malone smiling broadly for C.J. from across the store was not the same Dana Malone he’d left three days ago. Where was the nervousness, the shyness, the insecurity, that had—C.J. was pained to admit—made it much easier to blow her off as any kind of a threat to his hard-won autonomy?

You are man , he reminded himself. Strong. Above temptation. Impervious to … smiles.

While he stood there, thinking about how strong and above temptation he was, the curly-haired dynamo standing beside Dana jutted out a slender, long-nailed hand. “Hi! I’m Mercedes Zamora. Partner Number Three.”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Dana said. “Mercy, this is C. J. Turner—”

“I know who the man is, honey,” Mercy said with a warm— very warm—smile. Out of the corner of his eye, C.J. caught Dana’s glare. The phone rang. Nobody moved.

“Merce?” Dana tugged one of the woman’s long curls. “The phone’s ringing.”

“What?” she said, still grinning at C.J. like an overeager retriever. Dana tugged again, harder. “Ow!”

“The phone? ”

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Mercy said, rubbing her head. But as she turned away, she glanced over her shoulder at C.J., then gave Dana a look he decided was best left untranslated.

Dana rolled her eyes, shrugged in a we-love-her-anyway gesture, then said, “I’m sorry … wasn’t I supposed to meet you at your office?”

“You were. Except it occurred to me I might get a better feel for what you all needed if I saw the shop first.”

She laughed. “There’s a thought,” she said, then ducked behind the counter and held up the coffeepot, grinning. “Can I tempt you?”

Uh, boy.

It wasn’t fair, the way that nearly weightless dress, barely darker than her skin, caressed her curves, skimmed her breasts, her thighs, fell in a graceful sweep to her ankles.

It wasn’t fair, the way her thick hair, corralled into a braid, exposed her delicate jaw and neck, the way that same wisp drifting around her temple still eluded capture. As she swept it back, he noticed she wore simple pearls in her earlobes.

It wasn’t fair, her having earlobes.

“No. Thank you.”

“Your loss,” she said, pouring herself a cup.

“So,” C. J. said, turning to face the sales floor. And frowning. “Hmm. Now I understand why you need a bigger space.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” he heard behind him, and he smiled. But it was true. He’d never in his life seen so much stuff crammed into one store. Not an inch of wall space had been left exposed, and you took your life in your hands navigating the floor, as well. There were even mobiles and stuffed animals and wall hangings suspended from the ceiling. Something … indefinable spread through him, gentle and warm and oddly … scary.

He grinned anyway, taking in the racks of tiny clothes, the miniature furniture, the shelves of whimsical lamps and tea sets and fancy dress dolls. The combined scent of rich coffee and her perfume as she came to stand beside him. “This reminds me of what I’d always imagined the Old Woman’s shoe to look like on the inside. No wonder you nixed all the places I showed you. Which means … damn. You’re probably going to hate everything I picked to show you today, too.”

“Now, now … guess we won’t know until we try, right?”

Tempted to peek behind the counter for the telltale pod, C.J. instead crossed to a display of christening gowns, fingering one whisper-soft garment frothed in ivory lace.

“The workmanship’s incredible, isn’t it?” she said. “That one’s nearly seventy years old.”

C.J. let the fabric fall from his fingers, stuffed his hand in his pocket. “You’d think the family would want to hang on to something like that, pass it down.”

“If there’s someone to pass it down to .” Before he could decide if he’d only imagined the slight edge to her voice, she said, “Let me grab my purse and we can get going, I’ve got an appointment with a decorating client at twelve-thirty.”

She disappeared into the forest of racks and displays, leaving her perfume in his nostrils and a decided sense of foreboding in his brain.

On the surface, Dana mused upon her return to the shop two hours later, one probably couldn’t call the outing successful. Because C.J. had been right—all the new places sucked, too.

“Well?” Mercy said the instant the door shooshed shut behind her.

“Nothing.”

“Oh. Well, did you find a place, at least?”

Dana gave her a dirty look. One that belied what she was really thinking, which was that on a personal level, things couldn’t have been more successful. As in, there was a lot to be said for having spent a whole two hours in the man’s company without angsting about how she looked or what she said or even what he thought about her. Not more than once or twice, anyway. “Where’s Cass?”

“The baby kept her up all night with colic, so she’s taking the day off. Says she’ll switch one day next week with you, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dana said distractedly, leaning on the counter and leafing through the mail. “Although we really need to think about hiring another body or two. So we could, you know, have lives?” The phone rang. Without looking, she reached for the receiver.

“Great Expectations—”

“Dana?”

“Speaking. May I help you?”

“Dane … it’s me. Trish.”

She jerked upright, the mail forgotten. “Trish? Where are you? Mama’s worried sick about you.”

“I’m okay. Which I told her last week when I talked to her. Listen … I need to see you.”

It took a second. “You’re here? In Albuquerque?”

“Yeah, just for a couple days, though.”

“Where? Give me a number where we can reach you—”

“You coming into the shop tomorrow?”

“What’s tomorrow? Saturday? Yes, I’ll be here all day—”

“When do you get in?”

“Around nine, I suppose. But wouldn’t it be better to get together at my place? Or Mama’s house—?”

Click .

Dana stared at the phone for a second, then slammed it down.

“What was that all about?” Mercy asked.

“ That was my airhead cousin.”

“The one who disappeared?”

“The very same.” Dana huffed a sigh. “Says she’s in town, but won’t tell me where she is. Said she’s coming to the shop tomorrow, although God knows why.”

Swishing a lime-green feather duster over a display of ornate frames, Mercy shrugged. “She probably wants money.”

“Yeah, well, she’s in for a rude surprise, then, since between the medical bills from last year and our expansion, this is one dry well. If she needs help, she can jolly well haul her butt back home and go to work like the rest of us poor slobs.”

Mercy laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Anyone who didn’t know you would think you were this wussy Southern belle, all sweet and helpless. But let me tell you, if I had to pick someone to be on my team against the bad guys? I’d pick you in a heartbeat.”

Dana tilted her head at her friend. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The phone rang again the very moment a mother with four stair-step children tumbled into the shop.