The Baby Wore a Badge

“Family comes first,” Erin reminded him. It was a principle she believed in with her whole heart, as did Corey. “Besides, I know a great babysitter who can pinch-hit when you need a break and I’m not available.”

“A babysitter?” he echoed, saying the word with great disdain. “What, pay some teenager an arm and a leg while she’s on her cell phone all night, twittering—”

“Tweeting,” Erin corrected patiently. Even though she’d be the first to acknowledge how smart Jake was and how street-savvy he could be, her brother was a babe in the woods when it came to anything electronic.

“Whatever,” he dismissed impatiently. “Or some old woman who smells like cats and falls asleep the second I close the front door?” he continued, then dismissed both with a “No, thanks.”

“Calista Clifton isn’t a teenager,” Erin informed him of the young woman she was thinking of. “And she doesn’t smell like cats. She’s bright, cheerful and comes from a huge family, so she’s no stranger to baby spit-up or diapers. You’ll like her,” Erin promised, for now not bothering to cite the young woman’s other credits or mention her incredible work ethic. There was no response on the other end of the line. “Hello? Hello? Jake, are you there?”

His sister’s voice roused him.

Jake realized that he was no longer looking at anything. Jerking, his eyes flew open.

It was at that moment that he realized that the water in the saucepan had almost boiled completely away and that he’d just dropped the phone receiver he’d been holding on the counter. He’d literally been asleep on his feet and the receiver had slipped out of his fingers.

Snatching it up, he pressed the receiver against his ear.

He didn’t bother with an explanation, or apologizing. It would only give Erin more of an upper hand than he was already giving to her.

“Yeah, I’m still here,” he answered.

Pressing his ear against the receiver, he tried to hold it in place using his head, neck and shoulder as he twisted the dial to the off position and moved the saucepan over to another burner.

Jake stifled a yelp as the metal handle he’d grabbed burned the center of his palm. The pain shot up to the roots of his hair.

Sucking in a steadying breath he pushed beyond the pain and said, “Okay, you talked me into it. I’ll take a leave of absence and come up. You can get this Callous person—”

“Calista,” Erin corrected.

“Yeah, her,” he agreed. And then the policeman inside him came out as he added, “But I want to interview her before I let her watch Marlie.”

He heard his sister laugh. The warm sound was comforting. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, big brother.”

She didn’t really need the money.

Between her summer internship for her cousin Bo Clifton, who just happened to be the mayor of Thunder Canyon, and her part-time job clerking at the Tattered Saddle, the local antique store, her finances, though not exactly overflowing, were in relatively decent shape. And what with the two jobs, free time wasn’t exactly hanging heavily on Calista Clifton’s hands.

But the fact of the matter was she really liked children, especially babies. And she also liked the feeling she got when she helped people. So it was hard for her to say no to the situation, as Erin Traub explained it to her, involving Erin’s older brother because it actually encompassed both a baby and helping.

Even so, the thing that had ultimately cinched it for her was when Erin’s brother, Jake Castro, walked into the room. She’d agreed to meet him and was sitting in Erin’s spacious, sun-drenched living room when Jake came in holding his seven-month-old daughter in his arms.

If she was being honest, Calista would have had to admit that she’d noticed the baby belatedly. But that was only because Jake Castro was quite possibly the most incredibly handsome man who had ever crossed her path.

He was certainly handsome enough to cause her stomach muscles to tighten more than a little and for her palms to grow just the slightest bit damp. The latter hadn’t happened to her since she was sixteen years old and had that wild crush on the captain of the football team—a guy who had turned out to be as empty and soulless as he was handsome.

Jake didn’t look as if he was guilty of being empty or soulless. Not from the way he held that baby.

“It wouldn’t be very often,” Jake was saying to her after Erin had made the introductions and stated what they hoped her role would be in this situation, then slipped away so they could get acquainted. “Maybe once or twice a week at most, but—”

There was no need for him to try to convince her, Calista thought. He’d had her the second he’d walked into the room. Before he’d ever opened his mouth and she’d heard that baritone voice.

“Yes,” Calista said with enthusiasm as she interrupted him.

Jake stopped, shifting his daughter to his other side. It was uncanny how Marlie always picked the wrong time to fuss. He looked at the young woman his sister had selected. Because he hadn’t finished giving her the background information, he wasn’t sure just what she was saying yes to.

“What?”

“Yes,” Calista repeated with the same smiling, sunny enthusiasm.

“Yes?” He hadn’t really even gotten into his sales pitch yet, something that made him feel decidedly awkward because he wasn’t accustomed to asking for anything, even something he had every intention of paying for. But this eleven-pound bundle in his arms had all the makings of being his own personal Waterloo.

Calista smiled. “Yes, I can be available for babysitting once or twice a week,” she told him. “Or more often if the need arises.” Her schedule was filled to overflowing, but she could find a way to make it work. She was utterly determined.

Having taken the job, Calista bit her lower lip, hesitating for a moment, wondering if she should say anything. The next moment she decided that if it was her in Jake’s present position, she would appreciate being told.

She nodded at Jake’s daughter. “Um, the baby—Marlie, is it?”

“That’s right. Marlie,” he confirmed. He wasn’t all that crazy about the name. Had it been up to him, he would have named her something a little less fancy, but Maggie hadn’t asked for his input in that. Maggie had been very specific about what she’d wanted—and didn’t want—from him.

“Marlie just spat up on your shoulder,” Calista told him.

“What?” He glanced down, embarrassed rather than annoyed.

“Here, let me take her,” Calista offered. The next moment, she was very competently taking the baby into her own arms, drawing the infant away from the scene of the crime.

Even with his limited view, he could see that his daughter had spat up about a fourth of her last meal on the front—and shoulder—of his shirt. That left him with exactly one shirt that hadn’t been christened with recycled baby food and/or formula.

He bit off the oath that automatically rose to his lips. He was still in training when it came down to that. But he was getting there.

Chapter Two

Calista didn’t need to be a mind reader to figure out what the man standing in front of her with the newly stained shirt was thinking. When Erin called to ask about her availability to babysit occasionally in the evening, Jake’s sister had given her a very brief summary of his present situation, including how he’d come to this point.

Although Erin hadn’t gone into any specific detail, she assumed that Jake and Marlie’s mother had been lovers, but that nothing formal had transpired, other than his name appearing on the birth certificate, which gave him legal guardianship to the infant.

However, all that was not any real business of hers. What she felt was her business was that Jake was obviously going to need all the help he could get to facilitate his getting accustomed to this brave new world of midnight feedings, formula runs and ever-increasing pile of stained shirts.

For starters, she thought, she could tell him how to deal with the last.

“If you give me your shirt, I can show you how to treat it,” she said.

He looked at her, not quite sure what she was offering to do. “Treat it to what?”

Calista pressed her lips together, struggling not to laugh. “Not to something, for something. I can help you get rid of that stain,” she explained. “Especially if I can get to it before it has a chance to really set in. Timing’s important when it comes to things like that.”

She could tell by his expression that he felt as if he was navigating in strange, uncharted waters. Most men, like her brothers, weren’t into everyday, mundane complications. Clean clothes were a given, not something you needed to strive for.

And then she saw Jake shrug and then begin to unbutton his shirt.