A Babe In The Woods

Great. Just spill the beans.

But that wasn’t the truth he was talking about. He scooped the baby off the floor, held him at arm’s length for a moment and then laid him on the counter. “Somehow we’ll figure this out together. Any suggestions for step one?”

Rocky gurgled and smiled, somehow not in the least intimidated by this intimidating man.

“Very helpful,” Ben told the baby, and she detected there might be a sense of humor behind all that steel.

“How about the snaps on the sleeper?” she suggested, trying not to smile, trying to remember her most important step was to get out of here. She could contemplate what step two would be after she had accomplished step one.

“Even better.”

She watched his hands, strong and brown, make short work of the snaps. They were not, she decided, hands accustomed to this kind of work, and yet he was not a man who would do anything hesitantly.

Her own shirt, western-style, had snaps on it.

She ordered her mind not to go there.

Ben stripped off the sleeper with the same let’s-get-the-job-done efficiency. The baby was pink and dimpled all over. He waved his arms and legs, apparently delighting in the little explosions of odor his every vigorous movement caused.

“Have you got any clothes-pegs?” Ben asked.

Her lifestyle often required drying things on an inside line. She found the tin with the clothespins in it and brought it to him.

She had thought he intended to use them as diaper fasteners, and despite her desire not to let him win her over in any way, she burst out laughing when he carefully put one on the end of his nose.

“Want one?” he asked, his voice only marginally less sexy for the nasal twang in it.

“Does it help?”

“Yeah.”

So she nodded and found a clothespin clipped on the end of her nose. She was willing to bet she looked a lot less sexy—not, she realized, that she had looked that sexy to begin with. Not that she even wanted to think about why she might care if she looked sexy or not.

The clothespin helped. It hurt, but it was worth it.

“All right. Flap one, down.” He pulled the plastic tab, and the baby’s right leg sprang free of the diaper. She listened to his voice and heard a clue there. She would take money that there was something military in his background.

“Flap two, down,” he said in that same pilot-preparing-for-takeoff tone. He pulled number two. With lightning speed he had the diaper down and off and had handed her the damp cloth. He was running for the door.

She thought she might embarrass herself by puking, but oddly enough the chore didn’t bother her.

In seconds the baby was clean. She looked at the little jar of petroleum jelly, dabbed her fingers in and swabbed a generous amount on the baby’s little pink bottom. Ben was back.

“What did you do with that thing?” she asked.

“I put it in your fire pit. It puffed up like a big marshmallow and disappeared.”

“Great, do the same with this.” She handed him the washcloth.

“Isn’t it brand new?”

“I don’t care.”

He gave her an approving look and went back out. She plopped the baby on the fresh diaper.

“Don’t try and do up those tabs with petroleum jelly on your hands,” he called over his shoulder.

Too late. “Why not?”

“They won’t—”

The grease-slicked tab refused to cling to the diaper. She tried to wipe it off. No dice.

“—stick.” He came back in and looked over her shoulder. “Beginner’s mistake. But I have a short supply of diapers. I can’t throw any of them out.”

“You can always use moss,” she said.

“Really? And if there’s no moss, maybe a spider’s web or two?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No, ma’am.” But he turned quickly from her and began rummaging in the first-aid kit. When he turned back to her, roll of gauze in hand, the glint of amusement that had leaped in his eyes was gone. It was just as well. When these small traces of personality pushed through his surface remoteness, she saw a man who could be altogether too charming.

“I think it’s wonderful that the native people knew how to use what was around them—weren’t dependent on stores and factories to provide them with something so simple as a diaper,” she informed him.

“You won’t get any argument from me.”

“Good,” she said with great dignity.

“Just as long as you don’t start mixing up the turpentine and brown sugar as a substitute for baby powder.”

She glared at him, reminding herself it was a good thing if he thought she was some kind of backwoods bumpkin. The last thing he would be expecting would be a daring, midnight escape. The last laugh would be hers.

The only part that was too bad was that she wouldn’t have the enjoyment of seeing his face when he woke up in the morning to an empty cabin.

He flashed her a grin that nearly stole the breath out of her lungs and then ignored her as he wrapped the gauze around the waistband of the baby’s diaper, finally tying it in a neat bow in the front. “How’s that for using the resources at hand?”

She tried not to smile, but that ridiculous bow got her. She smiled. And then she laughed.

And so did he.

And she knew three things about him. One, he did not laugh often.

Two. He had removed the clothespin from his nose and she had not. She snatched off the clothespin.

Three. He was a complete novice at changing diapers.

The laughter died in her, and it did in him, too. They regarded each other warily.