The Baby Notion

“…all alone in that big old apartment out on Willow Creek,” the blonde was saying. “So I thought, why not? Everybody in town seems to be getting pregnant—mercy, I’ve never seen so many hatching jackets in my life. So I thought, why not me? Why can’t I have a baby, too, if I want one?”

Faith took Pricilla Jones by the arm with more force than Jake would have credited her with possessing, and led the blonde over to a white wicker settee. “Sit! Now, you listen to me, Prissy. Don’t you dare go and do something stupid just because Eddie ran off and married Grace Hudgins.”

Priss-Prissy-Pricilla shrugged again. It occurred to Jake, who was becoming almost as fascinated with the woman’s mind as he was with her body, that she could’ve given lessons in body motion to a belly dancer. “Oh, him. I didn’t like him all that much anyway.”

Jake thought Faith’s expression looked sort of dubious and sympathetic all at the same time, which made him wonder who this Eddie guy was.

Whoever he was, he was evidently out of the picture now.

With studied casualness, Jake turned to examine a display of miniature quilts near the door. From there he had a perfect view of the blonde’s profile. Go ahead, you jerk—make the lady’s acquaintance and ask her out!

She had a high forehead under that heap of streaky blond hair that reminded him so much of the haystack he’d like to lay her down in. Her big brown eyes were set off with a thicket of lashes that looked too dark for a natural blonde, but what the hell? Her nose was a little on the short side, and even from here he could see a few freckles, but it was a real nice nose, and Jake had never even thought much about noses.

As for the rest of her…

His gaze followed the hilly route south. He hitched up his jeans, which seemed to have suddenly shrunk a couple of sizes.

It struck him that he was behaving more like a fifteenyear-old kid high on hormones than a thirty-five-year-old horse broker who ought to know better.

“I made the mistake of stopping by this morning to pick up some literature, but I forgot that Miss Agnes works there on Thursdays. Honestly, Faith, that woman has a tongue like you wouldn’t believe. She looks so sweet, with her purple hair and her lace-collared dresses, but do you know what she said to me? She told me right to my face that I wasn’t cut out to be a mother.”

Jake knew breeding stock. With those hips, the lady was cut out, all right, although doing the job with a turkey baster was a crime against nature, if you asked him.

Which nobody had, he admitted wryly, giving his jeans another twitch.

“Pnss, you must have misunderstood her. Miss Agnes means well, she just—”

“I did not! My ears are working just fine. Her exact words were that I’d do better to order me one of those great big fancy dolls from that fancy toy store because then, when I got tired of it, I could just give it away. Have you ever?”

Faith glanced his way again, and Jake, his face reddening under a perennial weathered tan, pretended an intense interest in a handkerchief-size quilt covered in calico butterflies. He couldn’t have left now if the store was on fire.

Barely missing a beat, the two women picked up where they’d left off. “Oh, Priss, you know Miss Agnes. Her bark’s a lot worse than her bite.”

“It is not, either. Anyhow, I told her right flat-out that it was my money and my decision, and what’s more, it’s my birthday, and if I decide to have myself a baby, no busybody, who only works at the sperm bank so she’ll have a basketful of gossip to spread all over town, is going to keep me from it.”

“Priss, you didn’t!”

“Well, I didn’t actually tell her that last part, but I wanted to.”

“I have to admit, Miss Agnes is right about one thing,” said Faith softly. “Having a child without a husband is no laughing matter. I should know.”

Suddenly some of the fun seemed to go out of the chase. Jake had a few memories of his own along those lines. The day he’d heard about that damned sperm bank, he’d decided that Tex Baker, the rich son-of-a-bitch who’d founded it, had to be the world’s biggest hypocrite.

“Oh, I know that,” said Priss, and the accent that had irritated Jake before didn’t seem quite so irritating. “Look, I know you probably didn’t go to the sperm bank, Faith—at least, that’s what everybody’s saying.”

Faith made a strangled sound in her throat. Honey, you’ve got all the tact of a cactus, Jake thought, amused, while Priss blundered on. “But if you ever want to tell somebody who the father is, you know I won’t tell a soul, because I never gossip.” Jake rolled his eyes. “And if you need some help in the shop when your time comes, you know you can count on me.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that. Beth’ll be in school then, so I probably could use some help.”

Guilt was eating on him. He hadn’t come in here to eavesdrop on a private conversation. A simple pick-up, that was all he’d had in mind. He ought to get the hell out of here, only his boots didn’t seem to want to move in the direction of the door.

“And, Prissy—don’t take this the wrong way—but Miss Agnes is right. Taking a course in landscaping is one thing—I think you’re real smart to do it—but having a baby is something else again.”

“Oh, for mercy’s sake, Faith, I thought you, at least, would understand.”

“Priss, I do understand, but—”

“No, you don’t! You’re just like everybody else in this stinky old town! You think I can’t do anything! You think just because Daddy owned—”

Breaking off, she stood, and Jake got his first close-up, head-on look at her face. It was gorgeous. It was also red. Even as he watched, a freshet of tears spilled over her thick, dark lashes, leaving a faint trail of navy blue down her soft, freckled cheek.

Jake wanted in the worst kind of way to offer her the comfort of his arms, his lips, and any other body part she might possibly make use of. He was heartily ashamed of having listened in on a private conversation just so he could find a way to get into a woman’s jeans. That was a new low, even for him. But then, he’d never pretended to be a gentleman.

In Jake’s haste to get out of the Baby Boutique without embarrassing either himself or the two women, one of his big, booted feet shot out in the aisle just as the haystack blonde rushed past, and she tripped over it.

With a little deft footwork, he caught her before she could fall, but in the process, his hat was knocked to the back of his head, his knees bumped against hers, and he couldn’t help himself. Right there beside a herd of woolly white polar bears, Jake squashed her up against him, belt buckle to belt buckle, and looked smack-dab into the biggest, shimmeriest pair of whiskey-brown eyes he’d ever seen on any woman.

“I do beg your pardon, ma’am…Miss Priss,” he said, feeling like he’d been caught peeping in a window. Inhaling a powdery scent that smelled like ripening corn only sweeter, he involuntarily tightened his arms, pressing every soft curve as close as he dared considering they were in a public place in broad daylight

Faith came rushing up, all breathless and flustered. “Priss, are you all right?”

“Hmm?”

“This is—I mean, have you two met? Priss? Jake?”

A slow grin kindled in Jake’s gray eyes. “I reck’n you might say we’ve run into each other a time or two.”

Miss Pricilla Jones, who lived out on Willow Creek and was studying to be a landscaper, was blinking real hard when Jake turned his attention back to her. He promptly lost his train of thought, if he’d ever had one, as he watched her mascara melt and trickle down her velvety cheek.

“I got mascara on your hat brim,” she said in a breathless little burst of apology. “I’m sorry. I hope it’s not an expensive one. I’ll buy you a new one if you’ll tell me what size you wear. Or maybe I could just give you the money?”

It was Jake’s favorite hat. He’d bought it after his first big commission, paying a hundred and fifty bucks for it. It had taken him all these years to get it broken in. “What, this old wreck?” he heard himself scoffing. “Heck, I only wear it to muck out the stalls.”

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath and Jake stepped back, reluctantly putting enough space between them so that she wouldn’t realize how she was affecting him. It was downright embarrassing for a man his age not to have any more control over his body.

While her friend looked on, her expression one of concern mixed with just a tad of speculation, Priss blinked away the excess moisture. “Yes, well…if you’re sure.” She wiped a bangle-laden arm across her face, smearing her eye makeup even more, then she reached up with two frosted-pink-tipped fingers and rubbed the stain deeper into the beaver felt that he’d been so careful all these years not to bruise. “I heard somewhere that ginger ale was good foror maybe it was seltzer…”

Ginger ale? Seltzer?

The lady didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Jake, but who was keeping score? With her haystack hair tumbling down around her neck, a few strands tangling in her gaudy silver and turquoise earrings, she was sort of a mess, but she was just the kind of mess he liked. He’d have offered her five thousand bucks on the spot to go home with him and let him help her celebrate her birthday, only he didn’t know how to bring up the subject without letting on he’d been eavesdropping.

Trying to think of something clever to say that would impress her with what an honorable, upstanding guy he was, he followed her outside to her peach-colored Caddy convertible, tipped his ruined hat and reluctantly opened her door.

She smiled. She had the kind of smile that would derail a locomotive, even with the little smudge of frosty pink lipstick on her left incisor.

A customer approached, and Faith, who’d been hovering in the doorway of the shop, turned, took one last worried look over her shoulder, and reluctantly went inside. Jake tried to think of some way to prolong the moment, and then decided maybe it was just as well he couldn’t. Priss was evidently into babies and stuff like that, whereas Jake was a man who valued his freedom more than just about anything else. And men who valued their freedom learned pretty fast to steer clear of broody women.

Regretfully, he watched as she slid her shapely rear end across the sun-baked leather seat. Wincing, she gave him another trembly little smile and wiggled her fingers at him. He noticed that she wore three rings, but none on her third finger, left hand.