His Expectant Neighbor

Because he was angry, and his voice dripped with it, he was surprised when she looked up and smiled. “I bought a walker for the baby,” she said simply, her hazel eyes sparkling with joy.

Ben had heard all about the glow of pregnant women, but he had to admit this was the first time he’d actually seen it. Her eyes were so bright and her face was so radiant she could have lit the darkest night.

“No kidding,” Ben said, then scooped the unwieldy cardboard box out of her arms and carried it up the steps. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to be lifting heavy things?”

“It’s not heavy,” Gwen replied, her smile in place, her beautiful blond hair reflecting the rays of the early September sun. “Who’s your friend?”

“That’s Nathan,” Ben said, unlocking her front door because as her landlord he had a key. “Don’t change the subject. I rented this property to you on the condition that you’d be a good tenant.”

“I am a good tenant,” she said, right behind him as he set the big box on the floor beside her kitchen table. When he turned around, she was directly in front of him.

Dressed in simple jeans, maternity T-shirt and a bright blue sweater coat that wasn’t designed for a woman in her seventh month and didn’t button over her tummy, with her wind-blown, shoulder-length hair tucked behind her ears, Gwenyth Parker was still impossibly beautiful, and Ben realized he could have stared at her lovely face all day.

It had been a long time since a woman stirred his senses. Because Gwen did, he took a step back, then shifted around her to go outside.

“Are there any more boxes in your car?”

She shrugged. “A few. But really, Mr. Crowe, I didn’t buy anything I couldn’t carry myself.”

He grunted an unintelligible response to that, then hurried out the door and down the steps to her car.

He didn’t know much about the newest resident of Storkville, Nebraska, except that she was pregnant and she had divorced her husband, the baby’s father, before she moved here. That was the first reason he’d been reluctant to rent the roadside cottage to her. He couldn’t understand or condone a woman raising a baby alone when she had a perfectly good husband. The second reason was that he was afraid he would somehow become responsible for her. She had assured him he wouldn’t, but in less than a week he was already carrying boxes.

“Where do you want these?” he asked, stepping into the kitchen again.

She pointed to the sofa in the small living room off to the right. “In there is good.”

He gave her a patient look. “And how do you plan to get these up the stairs?”

Ben saw her pause, taking note of dark-haired Nathan, who still wore his good jeans and T-shirt from school and was behind Ben, more or less peeking around his waist at Gwen.

“Nathan,” she said, “why don’t you go out to the car and make sure there aren’t any packages left?”

From the formal tone of her voice, Ben could tell her good mood was gone. Nathan must have sensed it, too, because he didn’t say anything, only grinned and nodded, then darted out of the house.

“Look, Mr. Crowe,” she said coolly, her once-smiling face now drawn in anger. “I’m pregnant, not sick. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I’m sure you are,” Ben agreed, not quite understanding how a sweet disposition could go sour in the blink of an eye, but glad to have her mention the issue that troubled him about her. Since she brought up this subject, he felt permitted to pursue it. “Is that why you left your husband? To prove you could take care of yourself? Because if it is, you should be ashamed of yourself. Babies need two parents.”

He hadn’t expected her angry face to fall in dismay, but it did. He’d driven her from unreasonably happy, to angry, to sad so rapidly Ben immediately knew dealing with pregnant women wasn’t his forte. He also knew he’d made a big mistake.

Quiet, stricken, Gwen said, “I think babies need two parents, too, but it wasn’t my decision to get a divorce. It was my ex-husband’s. If the choice had been mine, I would have raised my child with its father.” With that she walked to the door. “If you don’t mind, I have to put all this stuff away,” she said, more than hinting that Ben should leave.

Confused because he was now more curious about her than before, but equally embarrassed because he’d upset her, he ran his hand across the back of his neck. Having been raised in foster homes, he understood his urge to confront her about not putting the welfare of her child first. But normally he had enough sense to stop himself from butting in if a problem wasn’t any of his business. And since her marriage, her ex-husband and even this baby weren’t any of his business, it puzzled him that he hadn’t thought this the whole way through before he opened his big mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized contritely. “I didn’t mean to be so blunt, but when it comes to kids I know I’m overly protective since my own parents abandoned me.”

With a brief nod, she more or less conceded that she understood what he’d said, but Ben knew it was too late. Not only had he stuck his foot in his mouth, but he’d also hurt her.

Walking to his truck, he felt like a real idiot. A blockhead, too stupid to tread lightly with a woman who had enough to deal with without having to listen to his criticism. He shouldn’t have challenged her the way he had, but he quickly forgave himself because he truly was a person who cared about kids. Asking her that question, no matter how inappropriate, was second nature to him. So that took care of forgiving himself. Now all he had to do was figure out how he could get her to forgive him.

Though he was a loner, who didn’t really have a lot of contact with people and who definitely didn’t care what people thought of him, Ben recognized this situation was different. He’d made a mistake, and he needed to fix it. But even before he reached his truck he knew that asking her forgiveness would be awkward and complicated and much more intimate than he intended to get with this woman. Which precluded making another apology, but, still, he wanted to do something. There had to be a way to make this up to her.

He opened his truck door and called to Nathan. “Come on, Nate. It’s getting late and we’ve got to get going.”

As Nathan almost tumbled down the steps of the cottage, having delivered the last of Gwen’s packages, Ben realized that the perfect way to handle things without getting involved was right before his eyes. Because Nathan was too young to get a job and too energetic to stay in the house, his older foster parents encouraged him to leave the reservation and spend all his free time tagging along with Ben. Though Ben considered himself to be somewhat boring, particularly to a nine-year-old boy, Nathan never complained, confirming for Ben that he was incredibly lonely. Gwen needed someone, too, if only because she was by herself outside of town and no one would know if she got sick or hurt. She and the boy were a match made in heaven.

“Hey, Nate, how would you like to earn ten dollars a day?”

Climbing into the truck cab, Nathan turned his big brown eyes on Ben. “You know I would!”

Ben immediately reached into his wallet and pulled out a ten dollar bill. “All you have to do is stay with Mrs. Parker, help with errands and make sure she doesn’t do anything too difficult.”

“Today?” Nate asked, confused.

“Every day. Ten dollars a day, every day,” Ben said, exaggerating the word so Nate would see the significance. “When I get home, I’ll put this on the mantel in the den,” he said, showing Nathan the ten dollars. “I’ll put ten dollars on the mantel every time you spend the day with her. Then at the end of a week, if you go to her house five days, you’ll have fifty dollars. But if you can go all seven days, spend a few hours after school every day and stop by on weekends, you’ll have seventy dollars.”

From the way Nathan’s eyes grew wide with every word Ben spoke, it was obvious he couldn’t believe his good fortune. As if he wasn’t going to miss this opportunity by reacting too slowly, the very second Ben was done making his proposition, Nathan yelped, “All right! Seventy bucks!” then shoved open the truck door and scrambled out.

But Ben stopped him by catching his forearm. “You can’t tell Mrs. Parker I’m paying you to stay with her and help her.”

Nathan blinked at him. “Why not?”

“She won’t like that,” Ben explained. “She’s proud.”

“Oh,” Nathan said, nodding his understanding.

“So tell her that you were curious about her and her baby and that’s why you’re back. We’ll think up another story for tomorrow and the next day until eventually she’ll just get used to having you around and she won’t question you anymore.”

Recognizing that was what had happened when Nathan starting hanging around with Ben, Nathan grinned his agreement.

“But no matter what happens,” Ben said, “you are not to tell Mrs. Parker that I’m paying you to help her. In fact, don’t tell her you’re there to help at all. Just let her think you’re curious about the baby and that you’d like to be her friend.”

Looking like a boy who was confident he could do this job, Nathan nodded, slammed the truck door and ran across the short front lawn to Gwen’s porch.

Ben started his truck and quickly eased it onto the road, knowing it would ruin everything if Gwen saw him and that Nathan had enough common sense to return to the ranch if Gwen refused his offer. But he didn’t think she would. He hadn’t met a woman yet who didn’t melt at Nathan’s smile.

Driving home, Ben felt as if he was the smartest man on the face of the earth. If this worked, orphaned Nathan would be busy and happy, with a caring adult, as had been his foster parents’ intent when they sent him to Ben, and Gwen would have company. In case she fell or became ill, Nathan would know to contact Ben. And Ben didn’t have to feel guilty anymore. He was a genius.

Because Nathan didn’t return to the ranch, for exactly one afternoon Ben felt he had the world by the tail. He was even whistling when he jogged up the porch steps of Gwen’s cottage to retrieve Nathan and take him home, but when smiling Gwen opened her door to him and Ben felt an unexpected jolt of happiness seeing her, he started to reconsider everything.

“Hi,” she greeted, obviously not holding a grudge for his mistake that afternoon.

“Hi,” he said. An odd sense of something tingled through him. His first instinct was to think he was getting a crush on her, but that had to be wrong. Sure, Gwen was a beautiful woman. Actually, she was gorgeous. But she was also pregnant with another man’s child. Now that he knew the real story, he had to suspect that Gwen hadn’t yet had time to get over her ex—especially if she hadn’t wanted the divorce.

Besides, he’d seen her often enough when he showed her the cottage and they negotiated her lease that if he were really getting a crush on her he would have felt it sooner, right? Right. If he were experiencing anything more than a reaction to her good looks, he would have felt it before this.

“I’m here for Nathan.”