For His Baby's Sake

He wouldn’t have known where to begin, Drew realised, feeling horribly inadequate but profoundly grateful at the same time that Rose seemed to know what she was looking for as she dug through the pile of stuff the Clarkes had sent with Molly, emerging eventually with a bib, a jar of prepared food and a smaller version of Jack’s highchair.

‘OK, we’re in business.’ Rose carried the chair over to the table and set it next to Jack’s as she pretended to marvel at how much he had eaten. ‘Do you think you deserve some pudding now?’ she asked him, and Jack shouted an enthusiastic reply and banged his plate on the plastic tray.

Drew liked watching her with her little boy. She was so relaxed and natural with him. Would he ever be like that with Molly? he wondered, glancing down at his daughter. It was hard to imagine. All he had to do was hold her at the moment, and he felt much, much more tense just doing that than he had done when he had heard that rebel troops were closing in on the village. Insurgents he could deal with; an eight-month-old baby was a much more alarming proposition.

‘Shall we just get Molly settled first?’ Rose was still chatting to Jack, wanting him to feel pleasantly superior rather than resentful. ‘She’s just a baby. She’s not a big boy, like you, and she probably doesn’t know about puddings, does she?’ She glanced over her shoulder at Drew. ‘Do you want to put her in the chair?’

‘Um…Rose…’ Drew held Molly away from him with a grimace.

‘What is it?’

‘She…smells.’

Rose couldn’t help it. She started laughing at his expression. ‘I should have thought of that! Time for your first lesson: changing a nappy!’

Digging out the changing mat, she laid it on the kitchen floor and talked Drew through the whole process as she gave Jack his pudding and encouraged her son to condescend to Molly. She could have changed and fed the baby in half the time it was obviously going to take Drew to do it, but she would have to be careful not to make Jack jealous—and besides, Drew had to learn. She had only promised one night.

One night with Drew.

How different this night would be from all the others they had spent together, from all those long sweet nights when they had tumbled, laughing, into bed, and woken cosily entwined the next morning. Rose could still remember the smell of his skin, the heart-cracking feel of his arm holding her close into the curve of his body. The warmth of his breath on her shoulder, the touch of his lips at the nape of her neck, sending that telltale shiver of response down her spine no matter how hard she tried to pretend that she was asleep…

Hastily, Rose yanked her mind back on track. This night wasn’t going to be like that. Drew wasn’t here because he had changed his mind. He wasn’t here because he wanted her. He was here because he needed her help, that was all.

Because he had had a baby with somebody else.

Think about Jack, Rose told herself with a kind of desperation. Think about Molly. Think about anything other than what it’s going to be like lying in bed tonight, knowing that Drew is at the other end of the hall—there, but not with her.

‘Whew!’ Drew screwed up his nose as he pushed the dirty nappy into a plastic bag. ‘Who would think something so small could make such a stink?’

Rose pushed the thought of the night to come aside, and got up from her chair next to Jack’s to dispose of the nappy. ‘Welcome to my world,’ she said.

After the nappy-changing, learning how to feed Molly would be relatively painless—or at least that was what Drew thought, until he discovered that there was a lot more to it than simply popping a spoonful of food into her mouth every now and then. Molly turned out to have a will of her own, and if she didn’t feel like having what he offered she would close her little mouth firmly and avert her face, batting the spoon away with an imperious hand. Drew ended up with more food on him than in the baby, but Rose didn’t seem to think it mattered.

‘She’s had something to eat, that’s what’s important,’ she said, wiping Molly’s face with the deftness of long practice and lifting her out of the highchair. ‘Now, what about a bath?’

‘That would be great,’ said Drew, looking down at his smeared shirt. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Not you, dummy! Molly and Jack.’

Drew was exhausted by the time Molly was finally ready for bed. ‘Do you mean to say you have to do this every day?’ he asked, appalled.

‘But this is the best bit,’ said Rose, unable to resist cuddling the warm, clean baby who snuffled into her neck.