This Baby Business

“Oh, no!” Carly stood up with her. “How did you know?”

“I worked as an au pair the year I lived abroad,” Jill shouted. “I don’t remember much, but I know that look.”

“What do I do now? Help me!”

“In order to really help, I’d have to rewind to the minute you agreed to help Hot Dad out!”

“How do you know he’s hot?” Carly swayed and rocked with Grace on her hip. She didn’t know if that would help, but it felt like the right thing to do.

“Just a guess.”

Grace continued to screech, a wild and guttural sound that scared Carly. Grace’s mouth was wide-open, so Carly could see down to her tonsils, and she was sure they were vibrating. Was that even normal? What if she was hurt? She’d never forgive herself!

“Okay. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

“No! Wait.” Carly danced back to her monitor. “Are vibrating tonsils a thing?”

“I can’t hear you.” And then Jill, Carly’s one connection to the outside world, was gone.

Gah!

Carly searched through Levi’s diaper bag one-handed, silently praying he wasn’t one of those parents that thought pacifiers were the devil. She found one, thank God, and stuck it in Grace’s mouth. She promptly spit it out.

Why did Grace have to be one of the babies who didn’t like pacifiers?

“Please stop crying, little baby. Oh, please.” Carly danced around the kitchen, but that did absolutely nothing except perhaps burn a few extra calories. “Maybe you’re hungry. Yes! Why didn’t I think of that?”

How could such a little thing let out a scream worthy of the lead singer in a hard-core metal band? How could her lungs be big enough?

Carly reached for a baby bottle from the fridge. Let’s see. She remembered reading about this in her mother’s baby bible before she’d done a blog post on “Bottle or Breast? Which Way Is Best?” Of course, in a million years she hadn’t implied that a mother should do it one way or another. No idiot, just like Mom, Carly vowed to stay clear of titty politics. She’d simply listed options. The bottle way was to warm one in a pan of hot water. No microwaves!

Time slowed to a snail’s pace as she filled a pan of water and waited for it to simmer, then stuck the bottle in, while simultaneously holding a baby who was screaming so loudly Carly wondered if she’d ever regain her hearing in the left ear. She did all of this while dancing and swaying and begging. But Grace seemed immune to all the begging.

“You looked so sweet and innocent when you were asleep,” Carly said, near tears herself. “Your daddy fooled me.”

Carly tested the baby bottle on her wrist. At this point she’d settle for anything between arctic cold and the fires of hell and damnation. Good enough. She settled on a kitchen chair and offered Grace the bottle. She latched on to it like Carly would the last dress on clearance at Saks Fifth Avenue. Carly threw her head back in relief and sighed. Finally, blessed silence, other than the sucking sounds of Grace and her bottle. Amazing how much Carly had taken silence for granted. She never would again.

“Yes, that’s all it was. You were hungry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have been so slow, but I was lying about being a baby expert.”

Lying had started to come so easily these days, but that was what happened when you were pretending to be someone else.

Or maybe it was what happened when you’d forgotten who you were.

Boy, Grace was sucking down this bottle of milk in a New York minute. Carly tensed, worried the silence would be over soon. And sure enough, Grace was eyeing Carly as she drank her milk, no doubt making plans to unleash the hounds of hell on Carly when she finished the important business of eating.

“Listen, this isn’t my fault. Your daddy was in a bind. Please don’t hate me.”

Grace got to the end of the bottle, first sucking down the last dregs and then just air. Carly didn’t know much, but that couldn’t be good. She gently pulled the bottle away from Grace. She reacted by sticking out her bottom lip, scrunching up her pixie face and letting go a wail worthy of a wounded animal.

And Carly was back to swaying, rocking and begging.

Mostly begging.

CHAPTER THREE (#u67794f6a-04ed-5b54-b705-d09e131f9b21)

“THANK YOU FOR flying with Mcallister Charters,” Levi said to the businessmen he’d picked up in Las Vegas and transported to Fortune.

He glanced at his phone. No messages or missed calls, and no news would always be good news in his book. Still, he wanted to check in with Cute Girl and make sure everything was cool with Grace. It was true that she slept on and off most of the day, but her crying had been enough to drive one nanny away. He stayed seated in the plane as his passengers walked across the tarmac toward the hangar.

Carly answered on the fourth or fifth ring. “Hello?”

“Hey. How’s it going? How’s my baby girl?”

“Okay. She’s very sweet, but, um, she cries a lot. Does she do that with you?”

“Yeah. What’s she doing right now?”

“She’s taking a nap.”

She did some of that during the day in between all the screaming. “Good. I had hoped she wouldn’t be too much trouble for you.”

“Well...no, she’s fine. So cute.”

Was that hesitancy in her voice? “Is it okay, then, if I stay until my shift is over?”

“Of course. You take your time. I’ll be here.”

Levi hung up, pretty proud of his baby girl converting Cute Stuck-Up Girl into a fan, and strode inside the hangar. He checked email from his phone.

Another message from Sandy’s father, Frank, saying that, no, they couldn’t come to see Grace in California. Did he have any idea how expensive plane tickets were to people who were not pilots? Why didn’t he just fly himself to Atlanta and stay with them for a few weeks? They wanted to see Grace. He fired off another email explaining that he was a working man and couldn’t take that much time off.

One thing appeared to be certain—they’d never be happy until he handed Grace over to them.

He headed toward Magnum Aviation’s offices to check in with Cassie. The older woman pretty much ran the show around here, even if she kept threatening to retire. She’d worked for Stone’s late father and had stayed on the past few months to ease the transition. Levi guessed it was a consequence of this being a small, south county airport, but it did seem as though there were an awful lot of relatives working it.

Emily Parker was Stone’s fiancée and one of their regular pilots. Sarah, Stone’s sister and part owner of the business, was a local artist who occasionally worked at the Short Stop Snack Shack. She also happened to be engaged to Matt Conner, one of Levi’s best buddies from the air force and also a pilot on staff. So if it seemed that there were about two degrees of separation from Stone and half of the people who worked for him, Levi would not be wrong. Basically, he, Jedd Taylor, the mechanic, and Cassie were the odd ones out. They should form a club.

“Hello, darlin’,” Levi said as he approached Cassie.

“Hi, cowboy,” Cassie said with a wink. “How’s that precious baby girl this morning?”

He rested a hip against her desk. “It’s not the mornin’ that’s the problem. It’s the middle of the night.”

“Ah, she’s still not sleeping through the night?”

“Any advice for me?”

“Well, it’s like that advice they give to parents about sibling rivalry. You know the best way to avoid it?”