Janice Maynard - Baby for Keeps

“Why not?”

She hesitated. “They were proud because I was smart, but they had no idea what to do with me. Once I was out on my own, the gulf widened. I’m sure part of it was my fault. I never quite understood how to talk to them about my work. And besides...”

“Go on.”

“I found out when I was a teenager that my parents had never really wanted children. It was a Pandora’s box kind of thing. I read one of my mom’s journals. Turns out that when I was conceived, my mother was going through menopause and thought she couldn’t get pregnant. So I was an unwelcome surprise in more ways than one. They did the best they could. I’m grateful for that.”

Dylan thought of his big, close-knit, sometimes rowdy family. And of the way his mother cherished and coddled each of her sons though they were now grown men. They all had their moments of discord, of course. What family didn’t? But he couldn’t imagine a life where his brothers and his mom weren’t an integral part of who he was. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “That must have hurt.”

Mia shrugged. “Anyway, you asked why the baby was so important. The truth is, I wanted someone to love who would love me back. I wanted a family of my own.” She laid a hand gently on the baby’s blanket. “It took eight tries, but when the doctor told me I was pregnant, it was the most wonderful day of my life.”

Since Dylan had witnessed her tears not so long ago, he surmised that the euphoria hadn’t lasted. “Was the pregnancy difficult?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

“And did people ask questions?”

“My staff was actually fairly small. And we each worked on a particular aspect of the project. So we were more like professional acquaintances than the kind of deeper connections you sometimes make in an office environment. My friend Janette knew the truth. Frankly, she thought it was a bad idea all along...tried to talk me out of it more than once. But she was supportive once I actually became pregnant. She even went with me to childbirth classes and stayed with me at the hospital when Cora was born.”

“So what went wrong? Why did you come back to Silver Glen and walk into my bar?”

She leaned her head against the back of the sofa, her gaze bleak. “A dreadful domino of events. My job paid well, and I had a healthy savings portfolio. But I drained all of it trying to get pregnant. Even that didn’t seem so irresponsible, because I knew that I could live on a strict budget and build up my savings again. Only I hadn’t counted on the fickle finger of fate.”

“Meaning?”

“While I was on maternity leave, the funding for my research and my lab was eliminated. Big-time budget cuts. So now I had a brand-new baby and no job. And, as a wonderful dollop of icing on the cake, my roommate with whom I rented a condo decided to move in with her boyfriend.”

He leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees, smiling at her with an abundance of sympathy. “That sucks.”

She managed a somewhat teary chuckle. “I probably wouldn’t be such a basket case if little Cora here slept at night. But no matter how many books I read and how many theories I try, all she wants to do is snooze during the day and play all night.”

“I don’t blame her. That’s my M.O. sometimes.”

His droll humor made her smile, when the last thing she felt like doing was smiling. She remembered that about him. Dylan was always the life of the party. He could rally a crowd around a cause, and best of all, he wasn’t moody. Some guys like him, i.e. rich and handsome, were egotists. But Dylan was the opposite.

He’d spent his high school years trying to prove that he was one of the gang. No one special.

She felt embarrassed suddenly. He must think she was a total nutcase. It was time to go. But just as she was gathering herself to depart, little Cora stirred and cried out.

Dylan’s face softened as he focused on the tiny hands that flailed above the edge of the blanket. “Somebody is about to get mad.”

“I need to feed her.”

“Do you have baby food with you? I can send one of the staff to the store to get some.”

“Um...no...thanks. I need to feed her. You know...nurse her.”

His neck turned red. She could swear his gaze brushed across her breasts before landing somewhere on the far wall. “Of course. No problem. There’s a comfy chair in the bedroom. Will that work?”

“That would be perfect.” She rummaged in the bag for a clean diaper and a pack of baby wipes, conscious that he noted her every move. “I won’t be too long. But don’t feel like you have to entertain me. It’s been fun catching up. I’ll leave when I’m done.”

He stood when she did, watching intently as she scooped Cora into her arms and bounced her so the baby’s displeasure didn’t escalate into a full-blown crying fit. Fortunately, Cora settled down and even smiled.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dylan said. “I don’t want you to rush off. In fact, I’d love to hold Cora for a little while when you’re done. Would you mind?”

She gaped at him. Big, brawny Dylan Kavanagh wanted to hold a baby? The thought sent a warm curl of something humming in the pit of her stomach. What was it about men and babies that made women go all gooey inside? “Of course I don’t mind. But don’t you have things to do?”

He tucked his hands in his back pockets and shook his head, his face alight with mischief. “Are you kidding? Mia Larin has come back to town all grown up. This is the most interesting encounter I’ve had in a month. Go feed the little one. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Three

Dylan watched Mia walk into the bedroom and push the door closed, though the latch didn’t click shut. His brain whirled with a dozen thoughts and emotions as he wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t sat down beside her at the bar. Would Mia have taken the baby back out to the car and driven away?

The thought made him uneasy. Had she sought him out on purpose, or was their meeting an accident?

He paced the room, wondering how long it took a woman to nurse a baby. Thinking about Mia baring her breasts and feeding her child was not wise. He had the weirdest urge to go in there and watch. Such a normal, human activity shouldn’t affect him so strongly. Maybe it was because in his memories Mia was little more than a young girl herself.

Women were always at a disadvantage when it came to child rearing. It was all well and good to say a mother could have everything—career and family life. But it required a hell of a lot of juggling and tag-team parenting to make it work. Dylan’s mother, when widowed long ago with seven boys, had leaned on her eldest son, Liam, to help carry the load.

Mia had no one.

Dylan could have gone back downstairs for a few minutes. He could have turned on the television. He could have sat down and relaxed after a long day. But instead, he paced. Things he didn’t even know he remembered came rushing back from his subconscious. The way young Mia had chewed on the ends of her erasers. The little huffing sound of exasperation she made when she thought Dylan wasn’t trying hard enough. The small frown that appeared between her eyebrows when she concentrated.

Oddly enough, he had found the eraser thing endearing. It made her seem human. Most of the time Mia’s grasp of the kind of books that befuddled Dylan either baffled him or angered him or embarrassed him. As an adult, he understood that his academic difficulties were the result of a very specific problem. But he still reacted to the memories with an inward wince that told him he had a chip on his shoulder, even now.

Without thinking about what he was doing, he worked his way toward the bedroom door. Because the door didn’t latch and because it was old and not level, the crack between the door and the frame had gradually widened. Dylan stood mesmerized, seeing only a slice of the room beyond. But it was enough to witness the quiet radiance on Mia’s face. The way she looked at her baby made his chest tighten.