Hometown Valentine

He nodded, then pointed to the door.

Lily turned and tiptoed out.

Blake followed, pulling the door closed behind him but leaving it ajar, pointing down the hall, indicating Lily should go back into the living room.

She headed to the other end of the house, mentally ticking off a checklist that had been forming in her head ever since she’d agreed to be Peyton’s nanny. Get fussy baby to sleep—check. Now, if she could simply meet and defeat the challenge of keeping her interest in Blake strictly professional, she’d be cool.

When she reached the living room, she turned, intending to ask Blake about Peyton’s meal schedule.

Before she could speak, Blake bowed with a flourish. “I bow down to you, oh wise and wonderful baby whisperer.” He straightened. “Please, share your secrets with me, the lowly man who’s deprived of sleep.”

She smiled, liking this playful side of him. Unable to resist his bantering, she held her hand up, palm out. “Please, please. Save your applause for later.”

He cocked his head at an angle. “Oh, so you think I’m joking?”

She blinked. “Aren’t you?”

“Not even close,” he said. “I thought it was a fluke when you managed to get her to sleep at The Cabana the other day. But now?” He shook his head. “You seem to have some kind of charmed way of getting Miss Fussypants to sleep.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you stressed out?”

He frowned.

“Just bear with me,” she said. “Are you stressed out?”

“Yeah, I am,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “I’ve got a business to run and a sick baby to take care of.”

“So you’re understandably tense. I get it. You have every right to be that way.” She smoothed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “The thing is, babies can sense tension, and from my experience with my brothers and sisters, they tend to feed on it.”

“So I’m passing my tenseness on to Peyton?”

“To some extent, yes.”

His face fell.

“Not on purpose, of course,” she quickly said. “But my point is this. If you relax, she’ll relax.”

“I don’t even know what relaxing is these days,” he said with a grimace. “I just run from one crisis to another.”

His life sounded insanely chaotic. No wonder he and Peyton weren’t getting any rest. He was overwhelmed.

He looked at his watch, punctuating her thoughts about how busy he was. “Oh, wow, it’s getting late. Why don’t we go into the kitchen and I’ll go over things.”

“Good idea.”

He turned and headed through a doorway that, presumably, led to the kitchen.

Lily followed, curious to see the rest of the house.

She stepped into the kitchen and drew up short, taken aback at the room’s obvious lack of personality. The counters were devoid of anything, and the stainless steel appliances sparkled with nary a fingerprint visible. The tile floor sparkled, and a vague hint of floor cleaner hung in the air.

Had he actually mopped the floor this morning? And vacuumed, too?

She shifted her gaze around. The small breakfast nook held a small round table that had the chairs arranged around it in perfect precision, as if they’d been placed using a ruler. And the window above the gleaming stainless steel sink was so clear she would have sworn there was no glass in its panes.

It was a spare, cleaned-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life space and held no personal touches or evidence that anyone had ever eaten—much less cooked or enjoyed—a meal within the walls of the room.

In fact, the whole house smacked of a blank, antiseptic cleanliness that set her back a bit. She’d grown up in a messy, relaxed household, one where cleaning only happened when absolutely necessary. This place was so impersonal, so cold it made her sad.

She slanted her gaze to Blake. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.

She swallowed a comment about the odd sterility of the place out of politeness. But the room spoke volumes about Blake and what was important to him.

And she had a sneaking suspicion she’d just agreed to work for a control freak of major proportions.

* * *

At about 11:00 a.m., during a lull in business—okay, the whole morning had been one big lull—Blake left the front counter in Jonah’s care and headed into his office to catch up on paperwork.

He was going to run an ad in the Moonlight Cove Gazette offering a two-for-one coffee deal on Tuesdays from noon to five as a way to drum up business. He couldn’t afford a graphic designer, so he was going to come up with something himself. He sat down behind his desk and booted up his computer, then went to the file he’d saved that contained the rough idea he’d come up with using a template he’d found on the internet. He put on his artist hat and tried to come up with something that was simple yet eye-catching.

His mind turned to Peyton. Poor little thing. Though her temperature had been normal when he’d left home, he still worried. He’d done a bit of research on the internet this morning and had read that viruses in infants her age could quickly turn serious.

Maybe he should check in with Lily again. Yeah, he would. He wouldn’t be able to focus on his work until he did. He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and swiped it on. Then he went to Contacts and pressed the button for Lily he’d created while he’d been going over instructions with her this morning.

He tapped his fingers on his desk while the phone rang on the other end. After five rings, Lily answered. “Hello?” No crying in the background. That was good.

“Hi, it’s me,” he said, his shoulders tensing.

“I know it’s you.”

Right. Her phone would tell her that. He got to the heart of the matter. “How’s Peyton?”

“She’s the same as she was when you called an hour ago.”

Had it only been an hour? “Still sleeping?”

“No, she’s awake now, and I’m making lunch.”

“Any fever?” he asked, praying it was still down.

“No, she feels cool to the touch.”

Some of the tension in his shoulders eased. “Did you need to change her diaper?”

A sigh echoed through the line. “Yes, I did need to, and I did.”

He stood up. “The diaper disposer is in her closet—”