Victoria Pade - Her Baby and Her Beau

And why, of all the things that he needed to be fitting into place, that was the one that had, he didn’t understand.

For two months now he’d been struggling to get something to feel right. He was like a fish out of water in civilian life. Everything seemed so unorganized. So inefficient. So undisciplined. People were lax. Too much was at ease too much of the time.

He sure as hell didn’t feel as if he was on the same wavelength as his family. They were trying hard. He was trying hard. Maybe they were all trying too hard. But either way, he felt like an outsider. A stranger. He didn’t know what they were talking about most of the time and he didn’t feel as if he had anything to contribute himself.

He hadn’t found a position he wanted in the business. Everything was running perfectly well without him, and board meetings pretty much went the same way family social events did—he didn’t know what the issues were and he certainly didn’t feel as if he should interrupt what was already running smoothly by putting his two cents’ worth in.

He was just failing at reacclimating all the way around.

And then tonight...

Seeing Kyla again was the first time since he’d taken off the uniform and put on civvies that something had clicked.

It was probably just some kind of throwback to the past. After all, they didn’t really know each other—not the people they’d grown up to be.

And Kyla had had years to hate him after only a few months when things had been good between them. She’d had fourteen years to live with her reality—that he’d left her pregnant and alone to deal with it rather than stepping up, taking his share of the blame and responsibility, and doing the right thing by her. Fourteen years with every reason to hate his guts and for that to have taken deep, deep root. To be ingrained in her.

Which made things a whole lot different than they had been that summer.

But nothing changed the mission, and he told himself to keep his goal in sight, to maintain his focus.

The mission was to make amends by helping her, and that’s what he was going to do.

And if, in the process, it provided him with a temporary distraction from all his failures to assimilate, and he got the chance to let her know that he wasn’t some lowlife who had turned his back on her or on his baby and his responsibilities to them both, the mission would be a complete success.

But as for the clicking?

That was nothing.

That was an emotional component and he knew what to do with it—ignore it. Keep it in check. Proceed as if it didn’t exist.

Which was exactly what he would do.

* * *

Kyla jolted awake at the soft knock on the motel room door at the stroke of 9:00 a.m. She was sleeping sitting up in a chair.

Not that she’d intended to fall asleep. The chair was near the room’s window and she’d been watching for Beau.

She’d been up with Immy four times during the night. Four times when Immy had again been unhappy, crying and refusing to take much formula.

And even when the baby had finally gone back to sleep and Kyla had been able to return to bed herself, she’d had trouble dozing off again. Thinking about Beau, about the past, and trying to figure out any way she could refuse his services had kept her up even more than Immy had.

Unfortunately she’d arrived at the same conclusion each and every time—for Immy’s sake she had to accept Beau Camden’s help. Temporarily.

And now that was upon her.

Stiffly, she pushed herself out of the chair and went to open the motel room door.

She’d been hoping that he might have looked better in the darkness last night than he would in the stark light of day. Instead the reverse was true and summer sunshine just emphasized how incredibly handsome he’d grown up to be. And one glance at him instantly thwarted her best intentions not to notice it.

Freshly showered, his strikingly angular face cleanly shaven, dressed in jeans and a simple white crew-neck T-shirt that hugged each and every one of his finely honed muscles, it wasn’t humanly possible not to notice that he was one very, very hot man.

“Hi,” he greeted her, sounding tentative.

“Hi,” she responded with resignation and no warmth whatsoever.

“Bad night?” he guessed after giving her the once-over.

Just what every girl wanted to think—that it showed. Especially when she was facing a drop-dead-gorgeous guy.

“Pretty bad,” she confirmed without going into detail. Poor Immy was going to get the full blame because Kyla wasn’t about to let him know he’d contributed to her sleeplessness.

He peered over her head at the crib inside the room. “Is she asleep now?”

“For a little while. It won’t last—she isn’t eating. I think she needs the formula she’s used to instead of what I have.”

“We’ll stop and get some on the way,” Beau was quick to assure her, as if her wish was his command. “I’ve got a state-of-the-art car seat ready and waiting, belted in by people who knew how to do it the right way, in the backseat. Think we can move her into it without waking her up?”

Kyla shrugged. “Rachel and Eddie could pull it off sometimes. I know I can’t—I’m really clumsy when it comes to lifting her with this wrist.”

“I’ll give it a try. Let me load up your stuff first. Why don’t you sit down again and—”

“There’s just this,” she said, pointing to the white plastic trash bag beside the door. “That’s everything.”

“Okay.” He reached in and grabbed it, taking it to the rear of the SUV and depositing it there. Then he opened the door behind the driver’s seat—apparently that’s where the car seat was—and leaving the door open, he returned to her.

“The guy who set up the car seat talked me through where the belts and straps go. If I just get her into it I think I have that part straight. How hurt is she?”

“The doctors and nurses said she isn’t injured at all. I’ve been worried about it, but I haven’t seen any sign that it hurts her to pick her up or hold her or change her diaper or anything. I...” This was going to sound crazy. “I actually rolled her in bubble wrap to get out of the fire and I guess it helped. The hospital was mostly worried about her lungs—from the smoke. But as of yesterday her lungs got a clean bill of health, too. And the way she’s been exercising them, I’d have to say that they’re fine.”

“Bubble wrap?” he repeated, almost cracking a smile.

Stuck on the crazy part. That figured.

“I had it to wrap a pitcher I was going to take home to Darla, so it was right there and...I just rolled Immy in it—everything but her face—in case I dropped her or something, then I wrapped another blanket around the bubble wrap and out we went...”

“Fast thinking,” he said as if that was something he approved of.

“That happens when the place is on fire and the roof is caving in,” she said, deflecting his approval.

He nodded. “So it won’t hurt her to pick her up?”

“It doesn’t seem to, no.”

“And...like I said, I don’t have any experience with babies... Do I just scoop her up?” he asked, demonstrating by holding out both of his hands, palms up, and thrusting them forward.

“She’s not hurt, but she’s kind of delicate just because she’s only eight weeks old,” Kyla warned, alarmed by the force in his demonstration. “You have to be careful with her—one hand under her head, neck and shoulders to support them, the other under her rear end.”

“Got it.”

Kyla felt less confident than he sounded, but she made way for him to come into the room and followed him to the crib, mentally willing the infant to stay asleep. And Beau not to drop her.