Christie Ridgway - Beginning With Baby

Jackson was out of his boots and into his breakfast the next morning when he heard a knock at his door.

He knew who it was, which was why he took another swig of cola instead of going to answer it. Through the walls Rex cried again—the baby had sounded unhappy ever since Jackson had returned from work. And even though it was just after six, he suspected the baby had been awake for some time. The knock came again, percussion to Rex’s noisy discontent.

It was Phoebe Finley and the baby at his door, of course, and he planned on ignoring them until they went away. He didn’t want to encourage any neighborly tête-à-têtes, any more than he wanted to find himself close to that baby again.

Once was enough.

Becoming acquainted with Phoebe and the child who wasn’t hers—but that she obviously cared so much for—was a scenario much too close for comfort. He’d been in her size sixes before, desperately wanting to hold on to someone—in his case, someones—who could be wrenched away.

Jackson wasn’t stupid enough to get entangled, even peripherally, in that kind of setup again.

The baby must have paused to take in a breath, because in the momentary quiet, Phoebe’s voice sounded through his hollow-core front door.

“Jackson! Jackson! Please answer. I’m in dire need of a good neighbor.”

That left him out, Jackson thought smugly, but then her voice pleaded again. “Help,” she said.

God, even if his brain wasn’t stupid, his feet sure were. The two of them pushed against the floor to get him standing and even walked him to the door. His hand didn’t hesitate to open it, though his good sense limited it to only a couple of inches.

Dark hair tumbling, blue-gray eyes pleading, two even, white teeth doing a number on her full lower lip. “My hero,” Phoebe said.

“I’m not.” He glanced at Rex, whose head had jerked toward Jackson at the sound of his voice. “What’s the problem?”

She bit her lip again. “Our landlady, Mrs. Bee, and about two-thirds of our fellow tenants. Rex has been awake and unhappy since 4:00 a.m., and I’ve received complaints. Mrs. Bee is starting to make odd threats.”

Jackson grimaced. While their elderly landlady looked like something off a bakery box, he knew she was better suited to selling nails, as in “tough as.” But he turned his grimace into a forbidding frown. “So?”

She swallowed. “So I thought maybe you could do your magic on Rex and get him to sleep again. He must be exhausted, and it didn’t take you but a couple of minutes yesterday.”

It was Phoebe who looked exhausted. Shadows circled her eyes, making them that much bluer, and her appearance that much more fragile. But Jackson ignored the observation. “No,” he said, swinging the door closed. “I’m in the middle of breakfast.”

The wooden door bounced off a small white sneaker. “Please. Couldn’t you eat and hold him at the same time?”

Years ago he’d been able to do that with both arms full of babies.

“Please,” she said again. “I wouldn’t ask, but I think I really need to appease Mrs. Bee right now.”

Telling himself he was making up some badly needed points in Heaven, Jackson reluctantly opened the door. She came right inside, smiling over her shoulder at him. “Once you sit down I’ll hand him to you.”

The smile died as she took in the Spartan bareness of his apartment—a threadbare couch, a couple of orange crates, a folding table and chairs that served as his dining room.

He found himself excusing his surroundings. “I’m only here temporarily,” he said, gesturing at the naked walls. “My job requires that I move from place to place.”

She didn’t say anything, but her eyes widened again as she looked at what was lying on his table. “That’s your ‘breakfast’? Beef jerky and a cola?”

“It’s turkey jerky,” he defended.

“Still.” She made a face.

As if he was tired of being ignored, Rex started fussing again. Jackson sighed. “Hand him over,” he said.

“Not until you’re seated in front of your…meal.”

He shot her a disgruntled look as he sat down. “Listen, I work nights and my stomach’s on a different time clock than yours, okay?”

“It’s on a different planet than mine,” she said mildly, but then walked toward him and handed over the still-mildly fussing Rex.

The baby immediately quieted, and Jackson shut his eyes for an instant, trying to shut out the sensation of baby again as well as the bittersweet memories the feeling evoked.

“What’s this about working nights?” Phoebe asked suddenly.

He started, and then took a sip of soda before answering. “I begin the job at 9:00 p.m.,” he said. “And I get off at five in the morning.”

She nodded. “So that’s where you go. When I noticed you keeping those kind of hours I just assumed you had something serious going on with someone.”

He laughed shortly. “Not my style. I spend my nights working.”

She came a little closer, the skirt of her flowery dress swishing around the smooth skin of her calves. A fragrance, feminine and creamy sweet, drifted over him.

Blood rushed to Jackson’s groin, and he stifled a groan.

She said something to him, but he didn’t absorb it, not with his eyes focused on her skin and his head dizzy with her scent. It looked as if it was time he did a little something more with his time off. Fostering relationships, even the casual kind that would ease a man who moved on regularly, required more effort than he’d been willing to make lately. But if the scent of a woman—a woman with a baby—and the sight of six inches of her legs could make him poker hard, then sex had made itself a priority.

He heard her voice again, and he forced his gaze away from her and to his soda can. “What?”

“I asked what kind of work you do.”

He didn’t dare look at her again. “I’m an engineer for a company that’s retrofitting overpasses—do you know what that is?”

“Making the overpasses earthquakeproof?”

He shook his head. “Not quite. But better able to handle the stress.” He told her a bit about his work and how he moved from one location to another.

She came closer, looking over his shoulder to check on the stubbornly alert Rex. “Well, California has oodles of overpasses,” she said.

Her female-scent was that much closer, too. “That’s why I’m oodling all over the state,” he answered, keeping himself sternly focused on the conversation. “I’m only here for another month or so.”

She’d started to laugh at the “oodling” but quickly turned serious. “You like it, then? Working at night? Moving around?”

“I’m suited to it.”

She pulled out the only other chair he had, the one beside him, and sat down, the soft fabric of her dress drifting over her legs.

“What about you?” he found himself asking.

Her eyebrows came together. “What about me what?”

Jackson cursed himself silently. What the hell was he interrogating her for? He didn’t want her to get the idea he was interested. But she was looking at him expectantly. He shrugged. “Does your life suit you?”

“I suppose. I’ve been slowly working my way through college, and my business keeps me hopping.” She shifted in her seat, crossing her legs so that more of the smooth skin of one calf was exposed. “Now that I have the baby—”

“What’s your boyfriend think of that, by the way?” Damn. Stupid question number two.

Her eyebrows rose. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said. “And I don’t expect to snag one anytime soon.”

Her answer provided an odd spurt of relief that Jackson wasn’t sure was bad or good.

She cast another glance at the baby, then suddenly popped up from her chair. “You did it. You got him to sleep again.”