The Non-Commissioned Baby

“Agnes Butler,” he said, the elderly woman’s features forming in his mind. “For lack of anything better to do, she spies on me.”

Twin brown eyebrows arched high on her forehead. “Spying? Sounds a little paranoid.”

Briefly, he recalled all the times he had strolled down that short hallway and spotted his neighbor, her eye glued to a partially opened door. Yeah, spying was the right word.

“You’re not paranoid,” he told her, “if they really are after you.”

A moment or two of silence passed. At last, she nodded and said, “Yes, well, the rest of the rules are pretty simple.”

“There’s more?” he asked.

She smiled. “No foul language—”

“Now, just a minute—” he said, trying to interrupt, but she was on a roll.

“No talking before coffee in the morning, and no loud TV or radio after eleven at night.”

Jeff stared at her. Was she finished? Or just pausing for breath? A few seconds ticked by, and he told himself that apparently, she’d reached the end of her demands. Well, fine. Now it was his turn.

He would tell her just what she could do with her rules. This was his house after all. Where did she get off telling him when he could or couldn’t watch his TV? And what about women? So he didn’t exactly have a parade of females trooping in and out of his apartment every day and night. If he wanted to, he wasn’t going to be stopped by her.

“Listen up, lady,” he started, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are...”

She froze, stiffening for a fight.

Miranda sniffled, shifting against a suddenly tense body.

Recognizing the signs of baby distress already, Jeff lowered his voice and spoke in a quiet, reasonable tone. “You can’t order me around. I’m the employer here, you know.”

“I can tell you what I expect,” Laura countered, her voice matching his. “And if you don’t like it, you can find someone else.”

He didn’t believe the threat. Even as she said it, her arms were tightening around the baby as if afraid that he would try to take Miranda from her forcibly.

No worries there.

But with the position he was in, he couldn’t afford to take the risk. If she left, he’d be right back where he started that morning. In deep trouble, begging Peggy for help.

All right, he could swallow a little bit of pride for the sake of his sanity. And he could even learn to deal with her ridiculous rules. Anything to keep her here and the baby quiet. After all, it wasn’t forever. Just for the summer. By the end of three months, he would either have found a suitable replacement guardian for the baby or, God help him, a permanent nanny to help him raise Hank Powell’s kid.

Abruptly, he said, “Fine. Agreed.”

“Thank you.” She accepted his defeat gracefully. “But as long as we’re discussing this situation, I should like to add one more rule to my list.”

He snorted disbelievingly. “What’s left?”

“I’d like to state clearly right from the first,” she said, “that I am not interested in you romantically, so I would appreciate it very much if you would keep your distance.”

Jeff laughed, the first good laugh he’d had all morning. Pointedly running his gaze over her slowly, he shook his head and said, “No problem.”

Once Jeff was out of the shower—and Laura had even resorted to turning on the TV so she wouldn’t have to listen to the spray of water and imagine it pummeling his naked, no doubt gorgeous body—they set things to rights.

The living room was a disaster.

With a fed and changed Miranda watching happily from her wicker basket, Laura and Jeff worked together to rebuild the place. So much for her rule about not being a housekeeper. As most of the clutter was cleared away, she noticed that the apartment wasn’t exactly homey. In fact, it was surprisingly impersonal.

A sprinkling of framed photos and commendations hung on the beige walls, but there were no paintings. Tweed fabric covered the couch and two chairs that sat on the tan wall-to-wall carpeting. There was an impressive stereo system and a large-screen TV on one wall, and a fireplace that looked as though it had never been used stood on the opposite wall. A two-person table sat at the end of the kitchen, and there were two bedrooms, one on either side of the single bathroom.

She tried not to think about having to share that bathroom with Jeff Ryan for the next three months. Luckily for her, she no longer noticed things like just how good-looking Jeff Ryan was. If she had been the slightest bit interested in finding a man, these next few months could have been torture.

Of course, she had thought she was past noticing the fresh, clean scent of a man’s aftershave, too.

“So,” he said, and snapped her attention to him. He folded up yet another brown paper grocery bag as he asked, “How come a kindergarten teacher didn’t already have a summer job nailed down?”

She stacked the last can of formula in what had been an empty cabinet, then closed the door and straightened up. “I did,” she admitted. “This one sounded like more fun.”

He snorted a laugh. “More fun than what?”

“Transferring card catalogs to computer in the local library.”

He whistled low and long. “You’re right, not fun.” He glanced at the baby a few feet away. “But this is?”

“Sure.”

“Lady, you’ve got a strange sense of fun.”

Peggy had told Laura that Jeff not only had no experience taking care of children, but also that he didn’t even like them.

She frowned at him. “Your sister has three kids. Don’t you remember how cute they were when they were little?”

He shrugged and bent down to neatly place the folded bags in the appropriate rack just inside the pantry door. “I remember they cried. A lot,” he said as he stood up again and closed the door. “They smelled bad and they couldn’t even talk to tell you why they cried all the time.”

“No wonder you never visit Peggy and her family.”

He looked at her. “Is that what she said?”

Was he offended? How could he be? “It’s true, isn’t it? You see them about once a year?”

“Yeah, it’s true.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned one hip against the blond wood countertop. “She tell you why?”

“She said you’re uncomfortable around kids.” Laura didn’t tell him the rest. Did he really need to know that his own sister, though she loved him, thought he was too self-involved to be concerned about family?

“That’s part of it,” he admitted, letting his gaze slide from Laura to the baby, now chewing contentedly on her own fist. “But mostly it’s because I can’t even talk to Peggy and her husband anymore.”

“Why not?” Laura asked. Peggy and Jim Cummings were two of the nicest people she’d ever known. Was the woman’s own brother too dense to see that?

He shook his head and smiled without humor. “Before they had those kids, Peggy and Jim and I had some good times. Skiing, sailing, took a few trips together.”

“And?” she prodded, interested now.